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Richmond upon Thames Liberal Democrats:Covering the constituencies of Twickenham and Richmond Park |
Cable quizzes Darling on the Comprehensive Spending Review
July 26, 2009 12:08 PM
• [Jul 14] Vincent Cable: THERE is clearly much uncertainty, but does the Chancellor accept the estimate of the OECD, which is that we now have a structural deficit on the budget of around 7 % of GDP, which the public spending review will have to incorporate?
As he agrees with us, I think, that it would be foolish and counter-productive to resort to fiscal tightening in a recession, how many years does he think it would take thereafter to eliminate that structural deficit? (HC Deb, 14 July 2009, c145)
Alistair Darling (Chancellor of the Exchequer, HM Treasury; Edinburgh South West, Labour): First, my forecasts have not changed since I set them out in April in the Budget; and as the hon. Gentleman knows, we will update our forecasts at the pre-Budget report. He is quite right too to identify the fact that there is still quite a lot of uncertainty. Although there have been some encouraging signs in this country and other parts of the world that we are on course to recovery, the problems in world trade are affecting exports. Although oil prices have come down over the past few days, the fact that they have risen poses another threat that we will have to deal with. However, as for making further forecasts or further judgments on what else we can do on spending, that is something to which I said I would return at the pre-Budget report and the Budget next year.
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