Treasury and Work and Pensions

The sad truth of life, which the public understand but the hon. Gentleman does not, is that we have no power to do any of those things, and will probably continue not to have that power for another three years, because of the likely delay in the general election. My right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench are quite entitled to give the Government advice about our priorities, and about what we would like more money spent on and what we would like less money spent on, and we do both of those things. We would like to save all the money on identity cards and unnecessary regional government, which we would like abolished. We would like far less bureaucracy and an end to the enormous controls over local government that cost more than £1 billion a year. We therefore recommend spending reductions and some spending increases to this Government now. We do not want to have to equip our forces properly in 2010 because they were not properly equipped in 2006; we would like them to be properly equipped now. We are not talking about dealing with the spending crisis in the hospitals when we come in 2010; we are giving the Government advice to deal with it now. It is on their watch. They are wasting so much money that it would be quite possible to sort out those problems with inadequate spending in some areas, save more money in other areas and end up with better public accounts, if only they would learn how to spend money more wisely. I do not want to get involved in the political ping-pong that the Chancellor has decided should be the substance of today’s debate, as it frustrates the public and means that we do not discuss the real issues of how we collect money, how much money we collect and how we spend it.