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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

I cannot do the detail of the shadow Education Secretary's sums for him—nor can Carol Vorderman. However, the overall gap in his budget—£1.8 billion over the course of a Parliament, £1.7 billion to find the savings cuts to contribute to the £6 billion, and, we think, £2 billion to £3 billion to pay for the pupil premium—is more than the entire amount of money from the employers' national insurance rise. The idea that just the rebate to schools would pay for those cuts is unrealistic. There is no way to fund the cuts that education would have to contribute other than by cuts in the numbers of teachers and teaching assistants, bigger class sizes, and cuts to the Sure Start budget. If the hon. Member for Surrey Heath were here, we could ask him to answer these questions, but he is not. If he were here, we could have said to him, "Will you guarantee to match us on Sure Start, on schools and on 16 to 19-year-olds"?, but he cannot do that. It is not just that he cannot do it today—at every stage in the Budget debates—[Interruption.] I am happy to inform the junior shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands)—I do not know whether he is the shadow Economic Secretary or Financial Secretary; I apologise—about the Budget debates. Last year's Budget debate was opened by me, as well. I think that on that occasion the shadow Education Secretary did turn up, unlike today.