Sir Jeremy Hunt

I am proud that I dealt with a real black hole of £72 billion, not a fake one of £22 billion, in my fiscal events, and I met the fiscal rules every time. If the hon. Lady is really concerned about that low headroom, why did the shadow Chancellor at the time—now the current Chancellor—not object once to the fact that headroom was reduced to that level? I will tell the House why she did not object: because if I had left headroom any higher, I would have had to cut spending more or increase taxes more, and that would have made the recession we were heading into deeper and worse, with more unemployment, fewer jobs and more poverty. That is why I am proud that I took the right decision. Even now, it may not be too late, because a Government who try to do the right thing with the time they have left are more likely to earn the trust of the British people than a Government who have given up. Please do not treat government as an exercise in survival. That would be a betrayal of the Government’s mandate. People with the broadest shoulders, as the Chancellor described them, will be rightly angry today. But it is the people who depend on public services, who are looking for a job and who are on the poverty line, who need a strong economy more than anyone else, and they will finish today feeling more scared than ever about their prospects.