Fiscal Responsibility Bill

No, I do not accept that. As I said earlier—the hon. Gentleman might not have been here—prior to 2007, when this crisis began, our debt levels came down to the second lowest in the G7. We have been reducing debt while spending more on infrastructure. The hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) mentioned the railways. I know, having been Transport Secretary for four years, what happens when a Government inherit a transport system starved of investment, as it had been in the 1990s—literally, things come off the rails. That is why I make no apology for the fact that the Government spend more on the railways and infrastructure. Our transport system needed the investment. We have spent more on schools and hospitals too. We owe a great deal to the Victorians, but I do not think that they expected us to be relying on their hospitals at the back end of the 20th century. We spent that money while reducing borrowing. Now let us consider what happened to us in 2007-08—this has a bearing on the point made by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) about the recession. We have a very large financial services sector—I think that we are, in most people's view, the main financial services sector in the world—so the recession has had a far greater effect on us than on others. I would like to ensure that we have a major financial centre here in the future. That is why we have to toughen up regulation and work with the industry to ensure that we achieve that. However, the idea that when we entered the downturn, we had not been running the economy efficiently and effectively is nonsense. Yes, we were spending more money on public services, but not a day or week went by when people on the Conservative Benches did not ask for even more money—not less—for schools and hospitals. On some days, they even outdid the Liberal Democrats in calling for more expenditure on services, so for them to say now that they did not want that spending is nonsense.