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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

With respect to the hon. Lady, that is entirely irrelevant. Her party was in office; her party had the ultimate responsibility for the government of this country—not only in 2007, but for the 13 years before the last election. It is a strange paradox that when Labour Members got into power in 1997, they did the right thing. They balanced the books; for four years, we were not running deficits, as they stuck to our spending plans. The Chancellor was prudent; ““prudence”” was his favourite word. Then, all of that was deliberately swept away, and they went on a mad spending spree, which directly caused the deficit and the savings that have to made now.