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Public Spending

The risk that we face is the fact that we have the largest budget deficit in the EU, with the exception of Ireland, that we have a very substantial structural deficit and that growth is lower than forecast. All those things argue for what we are going to do, which is implement a programme to reduce the deficit faster and further than the previous Government proposed. That is the only responsible course to take; profligate spending of the sort we saw in the final days of the previous Government is not responsible.