The OBR remit is pretty clear on this kind of thing. Let me just say that I have listened to the hon. Gentleman a great deal in the past five years. Coming from a party that never set up the OBR, or any equivalent to it, he seems now to be rather over-fascinated in what its operations should be. He might have thought of some of those questions during the 13 years of the Labour Government.
The hon. Gentleman said that employment growth had been of poor quality. I would dispute that. I think we will find that in the five years since the first quarter of 2010, more than 60% of the increase in employment has been in high skilled occupations. Some 75% of the increase has been in full-time employment and, after the excellent results this week, wages growth now exceeds inflation for the eighth consecutive month.
I am going now to make a bit of progress, because I am conscious that we have one or two maiden speeches
coming up and a highly subscribed debate. Let us look at what we did in the previous Parliament. In 2010, the priority clearly for the Prime Minister and the Chancellor was to put in place a jobs-based recovery. We all know the result: 1,000 jobs created every day, with three quarters of them full time. The employment rate is now at its highest on record at 73.5% and around the highest level on record at 31.1 million. We make no apology for prioritising job growth in the past five years. It is the best way to make people’s lives better, as the nearly 12,000 people who found employment in the shadow Chancellor’s constituency will surely agree.
At the same time, we put in place important supply side measures to improve our national productivity. We increased average public and private infrastructure investment to about £47 billion a year between 2011 and 2014, which is more than a sixth higher than it was in the previous Parliament. We have completed 15 major schemes on the strategic road network, worth £3.4 billion, with a further 17 schemes, worth £2.5 billion, under way. We have completed more than 2,650 infrastructure projects and extended access to superfast broadband to more than 2.5 million more premises. We have accelerated the academies programme, with more than 4,600 academies now opened, and we have set the path for high-speed rail to unleash the full potential of our northern cities. We have protected the science budget in cash terms and set out a long-term capital commitment on the science budget as well, ensuring that it will rise in line with inflation for the duration of the Parliament.