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Public Expenditure: Review of Commitments

My Lords, we should congratulate the Government on taking early and decisive action to deal with the deficit. The Benches opposite seem constantly to want to ignore the deficit and find a reason for not dealing with it. I am proud that our Government are getting on with it. The announcement made by my noble friend today clearly does not deal with the whole of the deficit and we will expect more from the Budget and the Comprehensive Spending Review later this year, but it is a very good start. It will help to restore confidence in our country, which is a key element of restoring growth. That is the most important aspect that we have to work on at the moment. I have one question for my noble friend, which echoes the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, in relation to the commitments that relied on underspend or access to the reserve. The Statement refers to billions of pounds-worth of spending commitments made in this way, but goes on to say that £1 billion-worth will be cancelled. I think that my noble friend said that a total of £7 billion was concerned in this way. Why cannot the whole £7 billion-worth of projects be cancelled, because, in the terms of the Statement, there is not the money to pay for them?