The one statistic that has been glossed over is the fact that there has been a near halving of disposable income growth after tax in recent years. People have borrowed to finance consumption even though they have tried to keep up their gross savings. The right hon. Gentleman echoed the worry that, in the current climate, there is the risk that people will seek to rebuild their savings too quickly and will cut their consumption substantially. That will cause economic volatility, so he argued in favour of fiscal management and he has a perfectly fair point.
Monetary management is still necessary.
We should never forget that the Federal Reserve's failure in the 1930s to keep up the money supply led to the great depression. The cause was monetary not fiscal. Member for Kingston and Surbiton clearly asserted himself as a man of the 1980s, or perhaps the 1990s. He saw monetary policy as all important and attached less importance to the scope of fiscal policy. He said that the Chancellor had misinformed the Treasury Committee about the figures for taxation.