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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

I am delighted to follow the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) who said quite clearly that the coalition Government were not responsible for and had not invented the problem. I might ask him to consider who did. Our country has had to face the biggest boom and bust, with the biggest deficit in the G20, and has had to cope with the biggest banking failure and the biggest crisis among our European neighbours. As a result, we have seen, under Labour, manufacturing falling and personal and national debt rising to a situation in which for every £4 we spend, we have to borrow £1. Every single day, we are spending £120 million just to pay off the interest on the country's debt. Of course this coalition Government did not create the problem: we are trying to put it right and we are now in the early stages of recovery.