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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

It is a great pleasure to be able to resume the debate on the Budget today. This is the coalition Government's third Budget. It is a Budget that helps Britain to earn its way in the world, rewards working families, backs business, and sticks to our course of clearing up the economic mess that the previous Government left us. This Budget, like the last two, cannot be divorced from the urgent need to deal with Labour's debts. Let us remember the crisis that we inherited less than two years ago. The state was borrowing one in four of every pound it spent and spending £120 million a day on debt interest alone. The country was taken to the brink of bankruptcy by a profligate Labour Government, leaving our people with the biggest deficit in the developed world. This Budget marks another step on the road to a strong and stable economy, and that is why we are sticking to our deficit reduction plan, winning credibility in the markets and keeping interest rates low.