22/10/10 - Swindon Advertiser Weekly Article

This week we saw the Comprehensive Spending Review, where the Chancellor has set out a clear timetable to stabilise the economy. Whoever had won the General Election, difficult - in fact very difficult – decisions would have to have been taken for Britain to step back from the brink.

Failure to act simply wasn’t an option. We need to confront the bills from a decade of debt and start to rebuild, putting our public services and the welfare state on a sustainable footing – for the long term.

Labour left this country on the edge of an economic abyss. The Coalition Government inherited the largest deficit in our peacetime history. We are spending £120 million every single day just to pay off the interest – money that goes to foreign creditors to help pay for their schools and hospitals rather than our own. There is absolutely nothing fair about running huge budget deficits and burdening future generations with the debts we cannot afford to pay.

Dealing with the deficit is unavoidable, but the decisions about how to do it are not. The Spending Review has set out our choices. Over the past decade Britain’s economy relied too much on public spending and rising levels of public debt. For growth to be sustainable it must be based on private sector jobs, exports, investment and enterprise. Having owned a small business in Swindon myself, and I know how important small and medium-sized businesses are to the local economy. They will form the building blocks of the recovery. Through providing incentives, mentors, cutting business regulation and investing in training we are helping make it easier and for people to set up their own businesses and thus creating new jobs. Indeed, one estimate suggests more than a million private sector jobs could be created in the next four years, far outstripping the predicted job losses in the public sector.

We have chosen to prioritise the NHS; schools; security and the infrastructure that will help our economy grow. To do so we have cut welfare and waste.

Because of our tough but fair decisions on welfare, and the savings we have made on debt interest, the average saving in departmental budgets will be lower than Labour planned in the March Budget. Instead of Labour’s cuts of 20% there will be average cuts of 19% for unprotected departments over four years.

Finally with both public and private sector organisations needed to become more efficient we have the potential as a town to attract organisations moving away from London etc, bringing with them new job opportunities. As your MP I will do all I can to help promote Swindon wherever we can attract investment.