Office for Budget Responsibility

George Freeman Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

First, let me thank the hon. Lady for welcoming the creation of the Office for Budget Responsibility—I should have thanked the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) for that as well. The change is a genuinely revolutionary step forward in the making of Budgets that fits with a wider agenda of trying to bring more transparency to the way that the Government do their business. On the point about investment, the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) is right to point out that there was a fairly dramatic fall in investment under the Government whom she supported, but I would say this: the sustainable answer to the problem is a strong private sector recovery, and that is what we all have to work towards.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the real significance of today’s independent report is the revelation of the extent of the structural deficit, with debt interest alone forecast to rise to £67 billion, strangling growth and enterprise, and at the same time destroying new Labour’s core claim to be the party of economic competence?

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is right—[Interruption.] I see one of the leadership contenders barracking from the Opposition Benches. I do not know whether the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) wrote the speech for the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) in which he told the Labour party conference in 1996:

“Losing control of public spending doesn’t help the poor”.

That is one area in which I agree with the former Prime Minister.