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Welsh Affairs

It is not often that we get thanked from across the Floor of the House, so I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for those thanks. He has worked tirelessly on behalf of his constituents and has properly represented them to the Government, and we have been able to help in the way that he has described. I am very pleased for the local work force that that is the case. We have given real support—real help for real people—requiring rises in public investment without which the Government deficit would be even higher. The irony of the Tories' opposition to our recent public investment programmes is that the very Government deficit they complain about would have been even higher had we taken their approach, because there would have been more unemployment and greater borrowing to finance people who would have been on the dole instead of in work, earning incomes and paying their taxes.