May I begin by echoing the Chief Secretary’s condolences to the family of Robert Key, his predecessor as MP for Salisbury?

It does feel like this is the time of the year when we have the annual George Osborne tribute debate. This exercise began in his period as Chancellor, but little did we know—and, I suspect, little did he know—that when he started this exercise more than a decade ago, he would end up being denounced as part of the left-wing economic establishment. The purpose of the exercise has always been more political than economic. It was to show that no matter how much the Government had set everything on fire, they could turn up here and portray themselves as paragons of fiscal rectitude—a little bit like angelic choirboys smelling strongly of petrol. The trouble for Ministers is that since this exercise was first conceived over a decade ago, there is now a long economic record for everyone to see and, perhaps even more seriously, a bitter economic reality and present that people are living through.

The UK is the only G7 country not to recover its pre-covid economic position, under the stewardship of the Conservative party. Controlling debt was supposed to be a big part of this exercise. Debt used to be numbered in the billions. It now stands at £2.4 trillion. So successful has this exercise in controlling debt been that we need a whole new word to describe it; it is now counted in trillions. Of course covid added to this, as it did in all countries, but lest Government Members claim this is all about covid, let us remember that most of the increase was built up before the pandemic.

There really is a gulf—one the size of the Grand Canyon—between the statements of fiscal probity and sound financial management, and the reality of the economic performance. When we look to the future, we see that this Government have earned the very dubious distinction of the UK being downgraded by the International Monetary Fund in its growth forecast, while the rest of the world has been upgraded. It is one thing to move in line with others, but to move in the opposite, downward direction is an achievement we should not want.