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Economic Growth and Employment

The hon. Gentleman's numbers may have been costed but they do not add up—that is the problem. As for the banks, it will be quite some years before the sales take place. The Northern Rock sale has gone ahead—that is a small bank—but for the major banks, it is likely to be some years ahead. We do not know whether it will be in this Parliament or the next; we have no idea what the economic conditions will be. It would be ludicrous for me to hypothecate about revenue receipts at this stage. I will move on to my final passage, because I would like colleagues to have an opportunity to speak. I will summarise some of the positive things that we are doing, albeit within a very constrained budget, to support growth. Of course, fiscal discipline and monetary policy have to be supported by interventions. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that there is a role for state intervention. I am not in favour of laissez-faire. There are things that we can do. Our concentration is on export growth. There has been 13% export growth over the past year. We are outward looking. The motion does not even mention trade. It is unbelievably parochial. I spend a lot of my time in emerging markets with British exporters—I have been to all of them—to support export growth. I do not claim personal credit for the growth, but we have acted as a catalyst for export growth in Brazil, Russia, India and China—the BRIC countries—of 26%, in India of 34% and in Turkey of 30%. I keep in touch with our exporters by working with them and alongside them to deal with overseas Governments. That is where the recovery is going to take place. It is on the back of those exports that we are getting rapid growth in manufacturing in certain sectors such as the automobile sector, which has attracted big inward investment from Jaguar Land Rover and others.