Budget Resolutions

I fundamentally do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman on that, and I will come on to say a little about tax in my remarks. I do not agree with him because the tax burden is very high and was then. I forget which Opposition Member alleged this, but we have never said that the financial policies of the Labour party in government caused the financial crisis, as that was a much more complicated problem. Our criticism of the Labour Government, particularly under Gordon Brown as Chancellor, was that they assumed when they made their spending judgments that there would be perpetual economic growth and that there would never be a downturn. The root problem is that they were spending too much money, assuming that the tax revenues would continue forever, and when the financial crisis happened and the tax revenues fell, we were spending too much money. That had to be dealt with and we had to make the necessary decisions.