Amendment of the law

As I said, the Budget has been presented against an uncertain background, but the right hon. Gentleman should look to some of the economic gurus whom he respects, such as Sam Brittan of the Financial Times. Sam Brittan will say that we should be quite relaxed about public borrowing at the end of the day. Indeed, I refer the right hon. Gentleman to Sam Brittan's article of 27 March, in which he says that in the second world war we borrowed against a bank rate of 0.5 per cent. What for? To ensure that we went to war producing guns that killed people. So why, in the words of Sam Brittan, should we not borrow to ensure that we get people back to work and off the dole—a lifetime penalty?