William Hague: We are restoring health to national finances despite IMF forecast

William Hague, foreign secretary, defends the difficult economic decisions made by the chancellor George Osborne despite the IMF growth forecast:

"We all have concerns about the global economy as a whole. The chancellor explained a couple of weeks ago that economic forecasts for the UK growth would be downgraded just as they are being for so many other countries as well.

"The important thing is that we have put ourselves in a position to restore health to our national finances through the decisions the chancellor has absolutely rightly taken.

"We've done that when not every other country has had the determination to do that and that puts us in a stronger position for the future as we're seeing in the record low interest rates at which the government is able to borrow."