Darling denies Budget irresponsibility
By Alex Stevenson
Alistair Darling insisted an “extraordinary series of events” was behind his decision not to balance the Budget before 2018 in an evidence session to MPs this afternoon.
In an exchange with the Treasury committee’s senior Conservative, Michael Fallon, Mr Darling denied the suggestion the government was letting public finances get out of control before the recent financial crisis.
“The structural deficit was 2.3 per cent [in 2006], he said. “Of that, a large part is accounted for by the fact we have been for some time running quite a high level of public sector investment. As you look ahead, events occur. And we’ve had quite a big event in the last 12 months.”
Mr Fallon said the deficit had worsened before those 12 months, prompting Mr Darling to add: “I think the infrastructure of this country did need more investment.”
In the 2003 Budget Gordon Brown said he would wipe out the structural deficit by 2006. Three years later he said this would occur in 2009. And three years after that, in his second Budget as chancellor, Mr Darling announced the 2018 date.
“We were making progress. But we were hit by an extraordinary series of events, as were other countries as well,” Mr Darling continued.
He argued the nation needed extra investment in schools and hospitals and that, during the late 1990s, there were not many people who would have “quibbled” with this need for extra investment.
