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Work Programme (Wales)

As my hon. Friend says, it will cost a lot less than the £46 billion rise in the deficit. We have costed it: a £2 billion tax on bank bonuses, which the Government are not introducing, will fund most of the programme. The rest of it, however, is funded by economic activity. The hon. Lady is not heeding the lesson of the 1930s. Keynes pointed this out to the world, but his policies were not adopted until we had to fight the second world war: growth cannot be created and the deficit cannot be brought down without investment. During Labour’s term in office, employment hit record highs. The jobless claimant count halved and poverty fell. Inflation and interest rates were low, and we enjoyed a record 10 years of growth. The deficit and debt were low and were reduced from levels under the Tories—so much for the big deceit of so shamelessly blaming the previous Labour Government’s economic stewardship. It was not Labour’s public investment in Wales—the new hospitals and schools and the tens of thousands of extra Welsh nurses, teachers and police officers—that triggered the global banking crisis; it was the banks, and they need to recognise that and learn that lesson.