Government Spending

Lord Bates Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I share with the noble Lord a grave concern about unemployment. I point out to him that, at the end of 13 years of Labour government, unemployment was higher than it was at the beginning. We will do our level best to tackle unemployment and keep it under control.

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that the current national debt amounts to some £893 billion run up by the party opposite when they were in government, and that the responsible cuts that he is proposing today therefore amount to less than 1 per cent of the total? Would he care to speculate about the consequences for small businesses, for unemployment and for the most vulnerable if firm action were not to be taken to tackle the debt mountain that has been left for us?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Bates is quite correct. I have said that the Government believe that the effect of not making cuts, feeding through into higher interest rates, would be vastly worse for small businesses and for unemployment than the effect of making those cuts.