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The Budget

I am certainly prepared to accept the growth figures. However, the growth figures were financed by borrowing on a scale that was being fiddled in the figures. Statements made by economists at the time showed that to be the case. There was going to have to be a reckoning, and now we are dealing with that reckoning. Although the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd is not in his place, I want to respond to his challenge. I represent a constituency with the largest number of public sector jobs in Wales, with HMRC—the Inland Revenue does the taxes for everyone currently in the room and for many people throughout the UK—Companies House and the University hospital of Wales. Many of those who work for the BBC live in my constituency, as do many who work at the university. Many of my constituents work for the Welsh Assembly and for a range of Government agencies. Be in no doubt that the public sector unions campaigned during the last election to ensure that I was not elected. They campaigned on the basis that the Conservative agenda would be to tackle this deficit. The right hon. Member for Neath has left the room, but he was in the forefront of campaigning with the unions against my election, so I make no apology for making it clear that the deficit must be tackled. I believe that I was elected by my electors—almost half of them work in the public sector—in recognition of the fact that we had to tackle the deficit. That was accepted in a poll last week by The Economist, which found that 57% of people supported the current level of cuts, or even tougher cuts. I am bound to say that there is a much stronger sense of realism among the electorate as a whole than there appears to be on the Opposition Benches. Opposition Members are voicing extraordinary indignation about proposals on public-sector reductions, yet as we have heard today they also oppose everything to do with taxation. In other words, if we were not taking the steps outlined by increasing taxes, there would ultimately be even less public spending.