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Building Britain's Future

Those are certainly not the figures that I have, but I am happy to debate that with the hon. Gentleman in the proper Parliament when we get back to Westminster. The motion is worded—presumptuously, many will think—making ““the most of the upturn.”” The cruel truth is that many businesses, people and households are still really suffering the effects of the downturn. Only to speak of the upturn during this period verges on being callous, because a lot of people are still facing massive difficulty. During questions earlier, we on both sides of this semi-circular chamber openly discussed the fact that many people simply cannot get credit for their businesses. I was motivated to get involved in politics about 30 years ago by Britain’s economic condition. I did not like the way that Britain was looked upon as the basket case of Europe, was going down the economic plughole and was facing serious and continuing economic decline. When we got into government 30 years ago, we went through a very painful period of economic readjustment, the mythology of which continues to resonate around the debating halls of British politics, sometimes to our political disadvantage. All was designed to put this country back on an even economic keel. The tragedy of the past decade is that this country had a massive opportunity to recalibrate the British economy to cope with growing global competition. The Government have boasted of continuous economic growth. Some people, when measuring it, have said that it has not just been 10 years of what I would call notional economic growth, but many more than that. However, over that period we have not recalibrated the economy as we should have—the Government have spent and spent and spent. At the end of that period, we should have been in a position in which the country had a massive pensions pot, lower taxation, a large surplus and low unemployment. Instead, as we went into the economic recession, we had a large government deficit; the pensions pot, which was massive when the Government came into office, had all but been destroyed; taxation had been creeping upwards; and unemployment was starting at 1.7 million at the end of the good years and is now predicted to pass 3 million.