Fiscal Responsibility Bill

The Chancellor says that he has the same view as the Governor of the Bank of England—he has just said that—but when asked by the Treasury Select Committee what he thought about the risk of a credit downgrade to the UK, the Governor said that we needed "a credible plan", which by implication does not currently exist, and that such a plan should consist of the elimination of a large part of the structural deficit in the next Parliament. That is a view I share with the Governor of the Bank of England and it is clearly not the view that the same Governor believes is being pursued currently—or else he would not have referred to the need for a credible plan.