Fiscal Responsibility Bill

Let me finish my reply to the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins). It is not that we Conservatives do not think that cuts are necessary, because we know they are. However, we emphasise that the fiscally and economically literate and responsible course to adopt is to engage in policies that will generate growth. It is only through the growth of small, medium-sized and bigger business that we will be able to find the money to pay for the public expenditure and resources—health, education and other things—that the British people will, quite rightly, be voting on. Without that growth, it will not be possible to have those things. If the Government try to rig and distort the economic data on which economic judgments are made, for the reasons my right hon. and hon. Friends and I have given, we will not get the true picture. Therefore, we will end up with greater public expenditure problems, because we will not be facing the truth. It is essential that we do not put all our emphasis on theoretical rubbish such as stability and growth pacts, which have been broken in every country in Europe, subject to sanctions that nobody has ever applied—that is all Euro junk. Rather, we must have an absolutely crystal-clear assessment, on proper accounting principles, of what will enable our economy to function efficiently, with real fiscal responsibility, and not a piece of paper and the vague rubbish with which we are dealing. We must have real bottom lines, accounting principles and responsibility.