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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

I believe that this is a courageous Budget. It is innovative and ingenious, notable for the steady stewardship of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We need to take a strategic overview. The recession from which we have emerged is a deleveraging recession, a paying down debt rather than a destocking recession, so some of the normal policy prescriptions on fiscal and monetary policy have proved useless in the face of that. That makes the imperatives of long-term reform of the public services, particularly education and welfare, tax cuts and supply-side reforms, including the reduction in taxes and the regulatory burden, even more important.