Pre-Budget Report

I welcome the debate, and congratulate the Conservative shadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne), on securing it. A three-hour debate does not really do justice to the magnitude of the problem, but we are grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for agreeing to it. The hon. Member for Tatton made several key points with which I agree. I agree that the figures for the economy and the public finances are poor, but at the same time they are optimistic—very optimistic. It is worth noting that Mr. Robert Chote of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, whom the Chancellor has already called in aid, observed yesterday that what is being hidden here was not so much a tax bombshell—although there may be one of those—as a drastic cut in public investment over the period to 2012-13. That makes complete nonsense of the Government's claim to be borrowing to invest.