My Lords, of course we are aware of what is going on in Europe, and I shall come on to issues of borrowing in a moment. We are talking here about an amount that is less than 0.1% of total government expenditure. The noble Lord cannot seriously be arguing that taking our position rather than that of the Government would bring the whole edifice crashing down. That simply does not reflect reality.
The problem that the Government have is that because they have failed to deliver growth in the economy there is a real risk—this is what is happening—that their austerity programme is making debt worse. This was again a point made in a very powerful article last week in the FT.
We have heard a great deal about the Labour Government’s record. When the Labour Government left office the economy was growing again and it was the austerity measures which choked off that growth. As to the Labour Government’s record on debt, before the international crisis hit, our debt levels were the second lowest in the G7, lower than when we came into office in 1997, I believe.