Finance Bill

Elizabeth Truss Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I want to pursue the argument for a moment longer. The implication of the intervention by the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) is that somehow there was a cut-price way for us to have ensured the recovery, which is now under way in this country. Sometimes when I listen to Conservative Members, I cannot make out whether their preference is simply to have done nothing during the past two years or whether it is that we should have invented some kind of cut-price plan to kick-start the recovery. Sometimes I feel that there is an illusion on the Government Benches that we could have rummaged around in a Budget bargain basement and found a Ryanair, cut-price, no-frills plan that would have delivered the economic growth that this country is now experiencing.

[Elizabeth Truss (South West Norfolk) (Con)]

What we are criticising is how the debt was built up prior to the economy going into freefall. Public spending in many areas doubled, yet productivity did not increase. Between 1997 and 2007, productivity went up by 2.3% in the private sector, but fell by 0.3% in the public sector. What we had was years and years of waste.

[Mr Byrne]

Perhaps the hon. Lady could explain why the Conservatives supported our spending plans until 2008. As for public sector productivity, she will know as well as I do that if more medical staff are put on to nurse patients, one might get a higher survival rate and better care, but such outputs do not show up in the cold light of productivity statistics.