Economy: Capital Expenditure Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Economy: Capital Expenditure

Lord Peston Excerpts
Tuesday 4th October 2011

(13 years, 10 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Sassoon Portrait Lord Sassoon
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I am grateful to my noble friend because the second of our two fiscal targets—namely, to put public sector net debt on a falling trajectory by 2015-16—is extremely important. He is quite right that we have to look at the total stock of debt and its trajectory as well as the deficit.

Lord Peston Portrait Lord Peston
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When will the Government recognise that the present dire state of the economy is attributable overwhelmingly to their own stupid policies?

None Portrait Noble Lords
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Oh!

Lord Peston Portrait Lord Peston
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Is it not about time that the Government apologised to the British people for what they are doing and accepted responsibility for it?

Lord Sassoon Portrait Lord Sassoon
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It will not surprise the noble Lord if I completely disagree with that. The state of the economy today is largely a result of the debt-fuelled boom with its unregulated banks that was allowed to go on for 10 years and more under the previous Government. We have inherited a dire situation and the first thing we have to do is to get the deficit under control. That we are doing but within that, as I have explained, one of things we are prioritising is infrastructure expenditure.