My Lords, this has been a fascinating and somewhat lopsided debate. It is my task to at least try to achieve some balance in the arguments before the country at present. I have only just got my breath back from the Minister’s very first statement, in which he said that this economy has been well managed by the Chancellor from the beginning. So why is the Chancellor back with a second comprehensive spending review Statement? Why is he back with a second round of cuts? I accept that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, indicated, the economy may not be in a double-dip recession, but why is he here in circumstances where it is absolutely clear that there has been no growth in this economy for the past three years?
There is nothing in the Chancellor’s proposals, which the Minister has been defending with his usual elan today, that suggests growth for the future. The noble Lord of course has particular expertise on infrastructure. We all appreciate that and welcome his appointment to give the Government a boost in that respect. However, let us recognise that there has been no expenditure on infrastructure since 2010. In fact, all those issues which were planned at that time, which I think the Minister referred to as the 2010 pipeline, have been effectively blocked. There is virtually no progress on any of the 2010 schemes. Now, of course, infrastructure spending is being suggested—in the distant future. The things being boasted about are HS2 and north-south Crossrail. Both projects are 10 to 15 years away from significant expenditure; perhaps it is a little earlier with HS2, but certainly not prior to the next general election. If it is being suggested that there will be a boost to the economy through infrastructure spending over the next couple of years, everyone needs to be disabused of this idea. That is not going to happen.
I accept a number of points that were made in the debate. I appreciated the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, about the decline of manufacturing industry. On whose watch was that? Which Chancellor said that we were going to rely on the service-industry economy? That was the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, in the 1980s. Who turned their backs on the manufacturing industry in the 1980s, when we saw a massive collapse in manufacturing jobs? It was the party of Margaret Thatcher. I will give way to the noble Baroness, of course.