Clause 6
Finance Bill
4:45 pm
Stephen Timms (Financial Secretary, HM Treasury; East Ham, Labour)
Because, as I said, expectations for the world economy have gone backwards—in an adverse direction—to a significant extent since November of last year. The International Monetary Fund has revised its forecasts two or three times in that period—downwards in all cases—so what we needed to do was what we put in place in the Budget: a trajectory that we could deliver on, getting us back to balance by a later point than we said in November, by 2017 rather 2015. The measure is an important contribution to that.
Several hon. Membersrose—