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Opportunities for the Next Generation

We know that the Government aim to cut sufficiently fast to eliminate the deficit in four years. Our judgment was that the right balance between dealing with the deficit and sustaining jobs and growth would be to halve the deficit over a similar period. That allows us to say not that there would never be any cuts in public expenditure, but that there would be a very different trajectory to public spending. For reasons that I will give, that difference of choice would have made a big difference to the young people of this country. I have acknowledged that some of the problems are deep-seated and long-term, but today's Opposition day debates focus critical attention on the Government's actions. The charge is clear: the Government's economic policy has directly made the lives and prospects of young people worse. They have not hit young people along with everyone else; they have chosen—I think ““chosen”” is the right word—to single out young people and to make their lives and prospects worse.