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Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [Lords]

No doubt my hon. Friend will be encouraged to learn of our belief that our efforts to cut back-office costs and protect front-line services in Whitehall should be replicated in town halls. Key to understanding progress against the Government's fiscal mandate are strong, credible, independently conducted official forecasts. Our first goal is to balance the structural current deficit by the end of a rolling five-year forecast period; our second is to see the public sector debt ratio fall at a fixed date in 2015-16. The measures that we set out in the Budget, along with the departmental allocations that we set out in the spending review, constitute a four-year plan to meet that fiscal mandate. We are currently on track to meet the mandate one year early, in 2014-15.