mr speaker, you will recall that when i first took my seat as a member of parliament for bromsgrove,fferent position, and since then we've had to work hard to restore the nation's finances, and it is precisely because we have restored the nation's finances that we can have the spending commitments that i am about to make today. and mr speaker, ifi about to make today. and mr speaker, if i may set out the context of what the situation was then, and how we have got out of there, so that we can focus on how we can generate the spending power that we are able to deploy today. and i know, mr speaker, that back then, our budget deficit was 10% of gdp. we borrowed £150 billion in labour's last year in office, it was the highest deficit in our peacetime history. we we re deficit in our peacetime history. we were borrowing £1 in every £4 that was spent. the party opposite lost control of the nation's finances, as they always do, and it fell to conservatives to pick up the mess. mr speaker, my two immediate predecessors took the difficult decisions that we need to bring the deficit under contr