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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

No. I am going to make some progress, because Mr Speaker has already told us that we need to let others speak. Let me remind Labour Members that they were the ones who let the bankers rip as they pleased, leading to a 10-year spending spree that sent personal debt to the record level of £1.3 trillion. They let public spending rip, too, but Members should not take my word for it; strangely, Tony Blair—not now spoken about much on the Labour Benches—said that"““from 2005 onwards Labour was insufficiently vigorous in limiting or eliminating the potential structural deficit.””" Insufficiently vigorous? That is possibly the biggest understatement that I have ever read. The reality is that they did nothing at all about controlling the deficit, so it is small wonder that the No. 1 priority for this coalition Government was to get the finances straightened out, and my right hon. Friends the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary are doing just that.