Budget Deficit

Lord Lawson of Blaby Excerpts

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, I shall try to deal with at least some of the noble Lord’s supplementary questions. First, there is a process of exchanging and discussing numbers between the OBR and the Treasury under the memorandum of understanding. The details of all communications between the OBR and Ministers will be published in due course on the OBR’s website, as they were in the run-up to last year’s Budget.

Secondly, on the question of the deficit reduction plan, it is interesting to look at the recent IFS green budget, which does a comparison between the coalition plans and the relatively sober Alistair Darling plans rather than the Ed Balls plans. The comparison shows that up to 2016-17 the cumulative impact of Mr Darling’s policy would have been that debt under a Labour Government was £201 billion higher than it will be under the forecast for the coalition Government. As the markets have made clear this week, if we listened to suggestions about making increased spending commitments now, our interest rates would go sky high and our industry would be crippled. We are sticking to our plans, but the private sector will contribute to significant infrastructure investment of the sort that both the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, and I would welcome.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby]

My Lords, is it not the case that the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, despite his great experience, needs even at his age to learn a little patience? Is it not the case that if there were some short cut to resuming growth, the Government would take it?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, it is indeed the case. If my noble friend had such a short cut, I am sure he would have told the House what it was.