Economy: Government Policies

Lord Christopher Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

No, my Lords, that is precisely not the conclusion from the IFS report. What the IFS report also pointed out was that Labour’s plans—the plans of Mr Alistair Darling in his March 2010 Budget—

“would, if [they] had been implemented, now of course have implied even higher debt levels over this parliament than those we will in fact see. That would have left an even bigger job to do in the next parliament”.

There would have been £100 billion of additional debt if we had followed Labour’s plans, and that was under Mr Darling. Mr Ed Balls has so far announced unfunded commitments of £91 billion a year—£326 billion of unfunded expenditure. Mr Ed Balls wishes to pave the road to Rome, if not to Athens.

[Lord Christopher]

My Lords, did not the Conservative Party embrace Labour’s spending plans?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, what my right honourable friend the Chancellor said we would do is to stick precisely to the spending plans that he set out in the March Budget and the subsequent spending review. That is what we will do, and that is what will keep our interest rates low.