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Living Standards

My hon. Friend is talking about debt levels. Was not one of the issues under the Labour Government the integrity of the public finances? Their estimates of public sector debt did not include the private finance initiative, which was a grossly exaggerated amount of public benefit, and they did not include the burgeoning increase in public sector pension claims on the economy. Does my hon. Friend agree that another aspect of debt in which the Labour Government's policies were embedded was increasing the costs that people had to pay for their housing through the ever-increasing impression that housing wealth was real wealth? That has had a real impact on people's well-being and living standards today.