The Economy

I have given way to the hon. Gentleman once. I am grateful for the fact that he has turned up, but I do not want to give him any further encouragement. The scale of the deterioration in the OBR's forecasts is stark. The OBR, which was set up to provide an independent view of the state of Government finances, has downgraded its forecasts three times. The Chancellor told us of all the steps he is taking to stimulate growth, but even taking those into account, the forecast is that public sector net borrowing will increase by £46 billion over the next five years, which demonstrates the failure of those policies. The Chancellor might be failing to get our economy growing, but the same cannot be said of unemployment. Government Members are celebrating, as we all do, the fact that unemployment is down in the last month, but unemployment over the course of the Conservative-Lib Dem Government will go up. Youth unemployment is up. The OBR forecast is that unemployment will rise––[Interruption.] Going forward, in every year, over the next five years, the OBR is now predicting that in every year over the next five years unemployment will be higher than in its prediction of a year ago.