The noble Lord seems to think that the reason why the economy is not growing is that the state is not large enough. How big does he want to the state to be? It is already taking nearly 50% of everything created by the Government and spending it, and that is not enough because they have to borrow on top of that.
If levels of taxation are high, which they are, and levels of regulation are high, we will not get the growth that is required. We need to constrain public expenditure to make room for the private sector to create wealth. Once we have a bigger cake, everyone can have a bigger slice, but if we try to proceed in this way we will end up with a smaller cake and those dependent on welfare benefits will be cruelly cheated. They will find their living standards destroyed by inflation, higher costs and the inability of the Government to finance the kind of programmes that Members opposite are prepared to say now that they would support, although they are not prepared to say so at a general election.