Public Spending

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I remind Members to try to keep to the subject of the statement; the Minister is not responsible for previous Government policies.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

If the Chief Secretary thinks that the biggest risk to jobs is the deficit, why does Britain have a better employment rate among all other European countries than America?

[Danny Alexander]

The risk that we face is the fact that we have the largest budget deficit in the EU, with the exception of Ireland, that we have a very substantial structural deficit and that growth is lower than forecast. All those things argue for what we are going to do, which is implement a programme to reduce the deficit faster and further than the previous Government proposed. That is the only responsible course to take; profligate spending of the sort we saw in the final days of the previous Government is not responsible.