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The Budget

I assure the hon. Gentleman that all of the figures I have given will be on the record, and he can check them. Let me give the hon. Gentleman another figure. In the last financial year in which his Government were in office, the tax revenue was around £520 billion and the spend was £680 billion. We had a deficit of £160 billion. That is completely unacceptable. He and I both know that no business could have operated on such figures and spent above its revenue to that degree. I genuinely do not understand this point. All measurements of the deficit are quoted in terms of general gross domestic product. I genuinely do not know why we do not look at the deficit as a percentage of revenue, because to me that is a far more relevant figure. As a percentage of £520 billion, £160 billion is a very high amount indeed.