---

Comprehensive Spending Review

The right hon. Gentleman is certainly right to say that at the end of the spending review public spending will be higher in cash terms than it is at the moment. In real terms, it will go back to the level of about 2008-09, and in terms of a share of gross domestic product to about the level of 2006-07. People need to be realistic about the scale of what is being proposed. The big gainer from the huge deficit that Labour left us with was the department of debt interest, and unfortunately it is the cost of debt interest that we have to meet.