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Comprehensive Spending Review

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Indeed, he gives me the opportunity to quote the Chancellor, who said in 2006: ““Ireland stands as a shining example of the art of the possible in long-term economic policy-making.”” So much for that particular myth. Since the financial crisis, UK Government spending as a share of GDP has risen by more than 5%. That deals in part with the point that the hon. Member for Cardiff North raised. Much of that extra spending was automatic, as firms cut back, unemployment rose and revenues decreased. Some of it—less than 2% of GDP—was discretionary and temporary in the form of the 2009 fiscal stimulus, which the Labour Government introduced when the economy was at its weakest. Some of it was public sector capital investment programmes that we brought forward from future years. We raised net public investment from £27 billion in 2006-07 to £49 billion in 2009-10, which was higher than in any other year in the past four decades, to ensure that we strengthened the economy when the private sector was at its weakest.