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The Budget

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The Secretary of State knows the strength of feeling that there is in South Wales about this. While electrification to Cardiff was welcomed, the business case that existed very clearly under the Secretary of State for Transport, Lord Adonis, at the beginning of last year, has suddenly been lost and is no longer the same case under this Government. The second point I wanted to pick up from the Chief Secretary is that yet again a Treasury Minister refused to answer my question about why Government bonds were financed throughout the last period under our Labour Government, from 2007 to 2010, at such low rates. If the country was on the point of bankruptcy, why were Government bonds being financed at such low rates? Why was the market willing to lend at such low rates to this supposedly bankrupt Government and bequeath the country such a terrible state of finances?