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Fiscal Responsibility Bill

I understand what my hon. Friend says. As a Government, we have to make a judgment as to what is in the country's best interests overall, and what we are proposing will clearly be extremely painful. I think it will be tougher to deliver than almost all of us in this House really understand. She is right to point out the difficult circumstances that it could create in many communities in this country. The Government must be extremely mindful of that when calibrating policy and taking decisions. As I said, growth is what is important. The more we can secure growth, the more we will be able to achieve the reductions that are required to meet the targets in this Bill. She is right to point out that this is very difficult, but I do not think that extending things over a longer period of time would be in the country's best interests. We have to strike what we think is the right balance in taking action to ensure that we have sustainable public finances over the medium term—that gives the markets confidence to want to continue to invest in the UK economy. Our judgment is that the pace that we are proposing is appropriate and right for the circumstances, but we cannot pretend that it will be anything other than very difficult indeed.