I am grateful to all those who have spoken and to the Minister for her full reply. A fair amount of the discussion has been taken up with where we are going to get the money. It is certainly not my job to answer for the Opposition as to where they would get the money from, but I would say here that without wanting to open up a general discussion again on the management of the economy, especially at this stage of the debate, I do take the view that you can borrow your way out of a recession. This is a paradox, of course, and it is not clear how it is the case at first blush. However, running a national economy, where one person’s expenditure cut is a cut in someone else’s income, is different from running a domestic economy.
There is a clear difference of view here with those on the Benches to my left. I am not an economist but I would ask people to accept that there is a very respectable and quite populous strand of opinion that supports the proposition that I have just enunciated. It is not so self-evidently barmy, as was suggested earlier in the debate, to say that the Government would be able to meet the cost of these amendments by borrowing more. There is respectable opinion to support that. To those who say that the Government are already more in debt and borrowing more than they would like to be, I simply say that there is no reason why they should not borrow a bit more. If the amount of extra borrowing that they are engaging in is still not achieving lift-off for the economy, they just have to borrow a bit more until they do. I know that that will not commend itself to this side of the House, but it is a respectable point of view and it is the position that I take.
We have been asked about the cost of the amendment. As the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, has said quite clearly, that obviously depends on a range of factors. One of those factors is certainly the rate of inflation. Therefore, it cannot be precisely quantified. In any case, the question about what we would do to get the extra money is answered by what I have already said in response to the Minister. A more pertinent question
than how one would find the money is when one would find the money. The answer of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie—a year at a time—is perfectly reasonable. Labour is prepared to say that it would uprate at the rate of inflation in the first year that we are talking about.
The only other thing I want to say in response to the Minister is that the Government have essentially been peddling a myth when they say that they are protecting disabled people in this Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill. They are only partially doing so. The Government ought to be straight with the British people. I repeat: they are only partially protecting disabled people. It is because I believe that the Government should deliver on their pledge to fully protect disabled people with this benefits uprating measure that I have brought this amendment to the House. It is also why I ask the House to support it, and why I would like to test the opinion of the House.