The Economy

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the U-turn she has announced. When I intervened on the shadow Chancellor, he attacked me for opposing the weakening of our border controls. The previous Government were not well known for being strong on border security or on immigration controls, yet he criticised me for standing up and defending my constituency. Just as the motion before the House is fantasy economics, it was the shadow Chancellor's fantasy that this Government cut our border controls. It was the previous Government who cut our border controls, such was the commitment of the previous Prime Minister to keeping our borders safe. He had the grand plan of selling off our English borders at Dover in a privatisation, so much did he care about England. In many ways, I wish that he were in the Chamber more often, rather than hidden away in Portcullis House, so that we could set forth to him our concerns about the policies he pursued. The recession and misery that have been brought upon people up and down the land by his serial mismanagement of the nation's finances are nothing short of a disgrace. The Labour party has gone from government to opposition, but has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. It has proposed a £13 billion unfunded VAT cut—populist but unrealistic. It has made £10 billion of welfare reform spending commitments—nice for the base of people in dependency culture, but unrealistic and unaffordable. We need to ensure that work pays.