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Comprehensive Spending Review

We have had a very good debate on the Government's spending review, and I thank all hon. Members who have contributed. Last week my right hon. Friend the Chancellor stood in the House and set out a clear plan to pull Britain back from the brink, to deal with our debts and to put our nation's finances back on a sustainable path. When we came to power, we inherited an economy that was on its knees and took over from a Government with no clear plan for getting it up and running. There was no strategy for recovery and no ideas for reform, and not a single penny of savings had been identified. If Opposition Members would like to intervene to tell me which of our spending cuts they would like to support, I would be very happy to take the intervention right now. The right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) talked about the March Budget, but it was a Budget and a plan that the British people rejected at the ballot box. While the Opposition are in denial, they will have no prospect of coming up with a plan to solve the grave problems that this country faces following 13 years of their being in government. We took over when our country was borrowing £1 for every £4 it spent. We were running the highest deficit in our peacetime history and the highest in the G20. Britain was not living within her means, and the world knew it, as my hon. Friends the Members for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) and for Central Devon (Mel Stride) pointed out. In fact, the previous year, the International Monetary Fund warned that we needed to accelerate deficit reduction. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) said, that was critical to getting our country's finances back on track. In May we announced immediate reductions in in-year spending, avoiding the sovereign debt crisis that was engulfing the eurozone. In June, we set out our emergency Budget, returning credibility to the nation's finances, and this October we have had the spending review, bringing years of irresponsible borrowing to an end and giving our country the best chance of keeping interest rates low, stimulating business investment and keeping mortgage rates low, and so helping families. We have had to tackle the deficit—it has been unavoidable. However, we have chosen to spend the money that we have on the areas that matter most to Britain, which are the education of our children, the health care of our people and the infrastructure that sustains a prosperous economy. As my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary said, underpinning all our decisions have been three guiding principles: first, the need to support growth; secondly, that our choices are fair; and thirdly, that we deliver reforms to our public services, making them fit for the 21st century. As the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) pointed out, those principles were entirely missing in the last Government's comprehensive spending review of 2007.