Jack Dromey
Main Page: Jack Dromey (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)Department Debates - View all Jack Dromey's debates with the HM Treasury
(14 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is right. On page 58 of the report, Sir Alan and the fellow members of his committee set out some of the liabilities that need to be factored into longer-term fiscal forecasts, which include an ageing population, unfunded public service pension liabilities and the PFI contracts. They point out that some £43 billion of PFI contracts are off the national balance sheet.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
In the real world of the real economy, last Friday I met a dozen world-class machine tool manufacturers at their annual exhibition in Birmingham. They were unanimous in their view that the Government were right to borrow to invest in the economy to boost it and their order books. Are they wrong?
Mr Osborne
If they are similar to the machine tool manufacturers I have met in Birmingham in recent months, they are also very concerned about the size of the budget deficit and that, unless we get a grip on it, there will be an ever higher spiral of tax rises and interest rate increases that would do enormous damage to them and to the people whom they employ.