The shadow paymaster general has defended the Conservatives’ handling of public services while in government and accused Labour of “breaking all their promises” from their general election campaign. John Glen: "The facts show we had tough times with high borrowing costs, but we achieved 0.7% growth, the fastest in the G7, and inflation is down to 2%." Report by Covellm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00I mean, we had clearly very tough times with a massive amount of borrowing and the cost
00:04of borrowing was high. But if you look at where we got to in terms of the growth in
00:09January to March, 0.7, what's projected being the best across the fastest growing economy
00:16in the G7, inflation down at 2%. Yes, there were pressures. There always are. I was a
00:23Treasury Minister for many years and the PPS to a Chancellor. At every budget, there are
00:28pressures from spending departments. The challenge of government is to work out how to deal with
00:32it, how to have a programme of public sector reform, productivity reform package and to
00:39urge restraint. And last year, for example, when we had a higher than expected settlement
00:45from the public sector pay bodies, we didn't borrow more. We didn't have inflationary solutions.
00:54We made departments absorb those extra costs. And I think the problem for Rachel is that
01:00she's trying to make up this narrative in a world where the OBR not only creates an
01:07open book, but it also shows how we balance those budgets. And of course, figures move
01:12around a lot up and before fiscal events. But, you know, to actually have speculations
01:19now about significant tax raises for working people, working people have pensions and investments
01:27and some of the changes, you know, be it equalisation of capital gains tax to income tax levels
01:33or changes to the levels of pension relief will have an effect on working people, even
01:38if the Prime Minister seems very reluctant to define who working people are.