The Economy

Absolutely, and I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I have said in the House before that when we tell people that we have a deficit of £1 trillion that will go up to £1.4 trillion, they look at us blankly and think, ““What's a trillion?”” It is such a huge number. However, when we tell them that every day of every year we are giving £120 million to foreign countries—that is the money that we borrow—they recognise the mess we are in. They recognise that we cannot give schools the improvement that they need, because of the absolute shambles of the private finance initiative projects in Building Schools for the Future. Money was wasted once again on bureaucracy. Labour Members have banged on about regional development agencies all afternoon, but they were a great way to spend bureaucratic money. The RDAs very proudly said that they had created x number of jobs, but they did not create those jobs, the private sector did. The jobs that they created were paid for out of the public purse. Where did that money come from? From the wealth creators in this country. Everybody understands that if I want to spend £1.25 and I have only £1 in my pocket, I cannot afford to do so. We understood that idea, and the country understood it, which is why Labour Members sit on the Opposition Benches and we sit on the Government Benches.