Treasury and Work and Pensions

I am not going to write my Budget for 2009 in 2006, but I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that, unlike the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I will not be breaking the promises that I make in opposition. Let us return to the last Home Secretary but one. His book is not selling as well as he hoped it would, although I bought a copy. It is ranked 1,104th by Amazon. Still, that is 78,949 places higher than another stocking-filler that has just been published, ““Moving Britain Forward: Selected Speeches””, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. [Laughter.] Actually, I rather enjoyed this book by the last Home Secretary but one. Here is an interesting diary entry for May 2003."““The tax credit system is a shambles—such a shambles that I've had to help out one of my constituents financially… But what else can you do when the tax credit system is such a total mess?””" There we have it: the flagship of this Government—the single policy most closely associated with the Chancellor of the Exchequer—and a former Home Secretary describes it as a shambles.