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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

I will pause to give way in a moment. In the end, given such inadequate content, all it adds up to is a vague target of halving the budget over the course of the next Parliament. The debt-to-GDP ratio will rise to "only" 75 per cent. of GDP, on the Government's very optimistic forecast. Ever since the Government broke into heavy public spending and borrowing in 2000, when they stopped following the figures that I had laid down in 1997, public spending has been increasing by 4.3 per cent. on average each year. The Budget set out that it would reduce that to 0.4 per cent. each year; it gives no credible description of how on earth it is supposed to get there, and if it did that, it would still leave the deficit at 4 per cent. of GDP in 2014-15. That is above an acceptable level. As we heard from the Children's Secretary's agitated ramblings about the details of his budget, the Government have not the first inkling of how they are to get to what we regard is an inadequate position and not at all healthy public finances for a return to normal growth.