My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we should provide a long-term plan and a long-term budget. However, if we are to be honest with the public and with ourselves, we need to measure what we are doing and be clear and accountable to the public that what we have said we will spend delivers the outcome we have promised.
This is about openness, transparency and accountability, and that is the missed opportunity. It may well be that this sum is right and that the savings that have been promised can be made to enable it to be adequate, but there is some serious doubt about that. Without openness,
honesty and the figures being reported on each year, we cannot put our hand on our heart and say that we are doing what we promised the British people we would do. There is a saying that what gets measured gets done, so let us measure this. Let us get to the crux of this spending and prove to the British people either that we have got it right or, if not, that we have a formula to get it right so that we can do what is right. We need a plan to monitor the10-year plan, which is great in ambition but needs to be properly scrutinised and properly monitored so that not just the Government and the Conservative party can be held accountable, but all of us in this House can be held accountable, because it is for all of us to get this right. It is not just down to the Government: it is for all of us to ensure that we deliver what people, frankly, need and deserve, and what we have promised.
6.38 pm