First of all, there are 1.25 million extra private sector jobs in our economy, and many of those are in Scotland, but the point in the Queen’s Speech that the hon. Lady should particularly welcome is the move on national insurance contributions, which will take one third of all British businesses out of national insurance altogether. We look forward to the Opposition’s support on that.
Let me take for a moment the central economic argument about borrowing and the deficit. The Leader of the Opposition recently attempted to make his case on “The World at One” and I think it is fair to say that the world was at one in concluding that he made a complete mess of it. He told us that Labour’s much-heralded VAT cut would last for “about a year.” That is what we were told. He was asked 10 times to admit he would put up borrowing, and he refused. He was asked again today. He cannot give a straight answer to this question. Yet the very next day on ITV’s “Daybreak” he admitted borrowing would go up. In this case his policy lasted about 18 hours.
So we have an Opposition who say that borrowing is too high but they are going to put it up. That is their official policy. You couldn’t make it up, Mr Speaker, unless, of course, you are the shadow Business Secretary. He has been famously comparing himself to Barack Obama. As he would put it, “Can we change our Wikipedia entry? Yes we can.”