Pre-Budget Report

No, I am not giving way again. No one is in any doubt about the scale of the economic problems. Just a few short months ago, when my right hon. Friend the Chancellor warned that the UK economy faced problems not seen for 50 years, the shadow Chancellor got to the TV studios as quick as he could to denounce that. Now we know that my right hon. Friend was looking ahead to the problems that we now face, and so was in a better position to measure them up and take the steps that he announced on Monday. The House will not have forgotten that in 1997, our poorest senior citizens had just £69 a week to live on—more than £50 a week less than they do now. With that £50, the Government have lifted 1.9 million senior citizens out of poverty. The country has not forgotten that in 1997, spending per pupil was less than £3,000. It is now £5,430. Investment in school buildings, including roofs, more than doubled, and we now have 40,000 more teachers in our schools. In our NHS, we have 130,000 more nurses, doctors and consultants, and Labour's investment in our health service means that 240,000 people are alive today, recovering from cancer and heart disease, who would simply have died had Tory levels of investment continued. There has been a decade of growth, a decade of cutting public debt, a decade of lowering taxes, a decade of creating 3 million more jobs, and a decade of investing in public services. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) made a number of telling points about the decades of failure under previous Governments, but today, the shadow Chancellor showed that, having trawled the record for lessons that the Conservatives could learn, he has found none. As for solutions, he proposes none. He now proposes to do virtually nothing, and that is not an option.