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Pre-Budget Report

Even if the deficit falls as planned, based on pretty heroic growth forecasts, the national debt will continue to rise, on the Treasury calculation, to £1.7 trillion, which is 91 per cent. of gross domestic product. That is in the Green Book. The Chancellor is right to say that we need a budget for growth, but this was not a budget for growth. This pre-Budget statement specifically confirmed the cut announced earlier this year in both the resource and the capital departmental expenditure limit for Scotland. Why did the Chancellor not take the advice of even his own colleagues in Scotland and have a further year's reprofiling of capital expenditure to protect the recovery, instead of ensuring that the cuts come now and weaken Scotland's ability to recover?