Treasury Questions: Comprehensive Spending Review
15th December 2009
Treasury Ministers are too weak to tackle the fiscal crisis says David Gauke.
Mr. David Gauke (South-West Hertfordshire) (Con): Since last week's pre-Budget report we have learned that the Treasury itself does not believe that the Government's spending plans provide a credible route to restoring our public finances, and that the Schools Secretary was still wringing concessions out of the Treasury after the Chancellor went to bed on Tuesday night. Is it not now clear that even if the Treasury Ministers recognise the scale of the fiscal crisis, they are too weak to do anything about it?
Mr. Byrne: I am sure there must have been a question lurking in there somewhere. I advise the hon. Gentleman not to believe everything he reads in the newspapers. What the Chancellor did last week was set out a clear plan for how we can halve the deficit over four years. It is pretty much the fastest consolidation plan in the G7, and it is also the clearest. We stand by the judgment that four years is the right period over which to halve the deficit. Of course there are people who have advised us to take a different direction and halve the deficit over three years, which would involve some pretty difficult judgments. That is the policy advocated by the Opposition, but they have not yet said whether they would put up VAT by 5p or halve the education budget. Is that because they do not know, or because they will not say?
