Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

5. What assessment he has made of recent trends in the size of the structural deficit.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

11. What assessment he has made of recent trends in the size of the structural deficit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Alexander]

That is a very good question. The previous Government were running a structural deficit from 2001-02, with a structural deficit of 2.6% in 2007-08, the largest, as the hon. Gentleman says, in the G7 in 2007. They were deficit deniers then, they are deficit deniers now, and that is why they have no answers to the problems of our country today.

[John Howell]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that Tony Blair has said that

“from 2005 onwards Labour was insufficiently vigorous in limiting or eliminating the potential structural deficit”.

How would my right hon. Friend assess the effect of that failure on the current trend in the structural deficit?

[Danny Alexander]

Clearly, we as a Government are having to clear up the enormous mess that the previous Government left. That is why we have had to embark on some very difficult decisions on public spending and, indeed, taxation, but it is just worth listening to the OECD, which states that

“the UK was unique in its need for fiscal consolidation, because the deficit had gone completely out of control.