Pre-Budget Report

I apologise for mis-speaking earlier, but the point I was making is that the plan we have presented involves a rapid—indeed, the most rapid of any G7 country—reduction in the cyclically adjusted deficit: from 9 per cent. this year to 8 per cent. next year and then down to 5.8 per cent. in 2011-12, when we anticipate the economy growing above trend. I conclude by saying that I feel very strongly that this pre-Budget report constitutes 212 pages of great detail, which is in complete contrast to the plan—if it can be so characterised—presented by the Conservative party. The truth is that the Conservatives have been love-bombing every audience they can find within easy reach of a press conference, and with that love-bombing has come a new lexicon of ambiguity. Thus, instead of a straight "promise", we now have a "pledge", an "aspiration", a "commitment" or a "No. 1 priority". This morning the Leader of the Opposition continued his careless whispers, reassuring listeners to the "Today" programme. He said that he would have to be tough and pull back from the Conservatives' guarantee of 45,000 single rooms in the national health service. It could not be a pledge, he said, but he told the listeners not to worry, because "it is an aspiration". It seems that the Conservatives now cannot stop adding to their now famous "queue" of commitments. We all remember what a Tory queue looks like. We used to call them waiting lists, and they were so long that people often expired before they reached the front. The Conservatives' "all things to all people" policy has left them with a £34 billion credibility hole that they cannot airbrush away. If the Shadow Chancellor spent more than 40 per cent. of his time on economics, perhaps the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge would not be in such an embarrassing position this afternoon; but he is, and the whole House is looking forward to seeing whether he can climb out of the hole in which his party leaders have left him.