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The Budget

The then shadow Chancellor was not aware of the true scale of the problem. For example, we are only now beginning to discover the role of private finance initiatives, and the amount of money that that has cost. The right hon. Member for Neath made several references to the number of schools and hospitals that his Government built, but he failed to mention that they were not built using the money that is now part of the national debt. They were all funded by PFIs, and so we will be paying the cost for another 30 years or so to come. That is one of the reasons that we had to take such drastic steps in the budget. The £950 billion to £1 trillion debt that we have on the books is not the full story. There are many independent observers who estimate that it is double that £1 trillion figure, if one takes into account PFIs, liabilities on things such as Network Rail and Metronet, and of course public sector pension liabilities. We have a very serious problem, and that is the reason why we have to take the drastic steps that are in the Budget.