This week I undertook my first budget as the Chancellor's Parliamentary Private Secretary and what a fascinating experience it was.
For months I’ve been receiving budget submissions and ideas from fellow MPs about what they want to see, and on Wednesday they got to know whether they had been successful. Standing outside the front door of No 11 with the Chancellor was quite an eye opener as to how big an event it is.
I hear about bits and pieces in the lead-up, but only got to see the Red Book and the facts and figures early in the morning.
Obviously I’ve been at meetings where various budget options were discussed but, other than a few senior people, nobody sees it all until either the day before or the day itself. It’s probably just as well, considering the number of journalists wanting to speak to me over the past few weeks to prise out any secrets.
There’s no doubt it was a successful set piece event for the Chancellor. He continued the Government’s long term economic plan to give security to families in Reading East and across Britain.
Despite the Labour Party’s negative carping on the day, the idea that the Coalition Government is responsible for the economic mess we inherited is laughable. We have simply got on with the job, sticking to our plan to get the country living within its means.
Unfortunately, despite our huge progress the scale of the debts Labour built up is staggering and much more needs to be done.
Next year we’ll have halved the deficit but there is still a structural deficit that won’t be turned around by economic growth. Even with growth we will still run a deficit, creating more national debt. So we have taken the decision to stick to our plan to continue reducing spending and funding any tax reductions to stimulate the economy through that route. Following Labour’s plan of extra borrowing, spending and tax would be disastrous.
The Chancellor delivered an incredible package for savers, particularly for those struggling with low interest rates, pensioners and the low paid. I do hope you will have time to look at the changes. It is difficult to put right Labour’s great recession in one go, but the progress is significant.
Now we need to finish the job because if the country changes tack we will lose all those hard won gains.