Economy: Capital Expenditure

Lord Peston Excerpts

Tuesday 4th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

I am grateful to my noble friend because the second of our two fiscal targets—namely, to put public sector net debt on a falling trajectory by 2015-16—is extremely important. He is quite right that we have to look at the total stock of debt and its trajectory as well as the deficit.

[Lord Peston]

When will the Government recognise that the present dire state of the economy is attributable overwhelmingly to their own stupid policies?

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Peston]

Is it not about time that the Government apologised to the British people for what they are doing and accepted responsibility for it?

[Lord Sassoon]

It will not surprise the noble Lord if I completely disagree with that. The state of the economy today is largely a result of the debt-fuelled boom with its unregulated banks that was allowed to go on for 10 years and more under the previous Government. We have inherited a dire situation and the first thing we have to do is to get the deficit under control. That we are doing but within that, as I have explained, one of things we are prioritising is infrastructure expenditure.