Living within our means is necessary to grow the economy, create jobs and protect our public services. Governments that fail to grip their deficits find that international confidence falls, their credit rating slips, and the cost of borrowing goes up.

Earlier today I was pleased to join Jo Coburn as a guest on BBC2's Daily Politics. I appeared alongside Labour’s Barry Gardiner and Lord Jones of Birmingham (Digby Jones), a crossbench peer in the House of Lords.