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Autumn Statement

I am sure that the House will want to return to that last point on the UK Government’s ability to control their finances. Did I hear the Chancellor correctly when he was claiming credit for having halved the deficit over the course of this Parliament, because his view used to be that that would not be a terribly good thing? We are still borrowing £90 billion this year, and the reduced growth forecasts for the next five years, which we see in the OBR report, show that it will slow down, so can he tell us what impact that will have on the likely tax revenues, which of course have a bearing on our ability to pay down the deficit?