Today I was delighted to hear Alistair Darling’s budget.  Its clear that Labour has acted decisively and consistently to support the economy, businesses and families through the deepest global recession for more than 60 years.  The Tories want to put all this risk and will  depress the economy – thereby increasing unemployment and decreasing the take in income tax from people in work.

Look at what Alistair announced today:

• Extending the Young Person’s Guarantee after March 2011, to ensure that young people continue to be guaranteed a job, training or work experience if they cannot find work within six months
• Funding 20,000 extra undergraduate places on courses starting in 2010-11
• Giving Working Tax Credit to people over 60, working at least 16 hours per week
• Investing in Britain’s 21st century infrastructure by creating a Green Investment Bank that will support low-carbon projects
• Giving a hand-up to first time buyers with a two year stamp duty holiday on transactions up to £250,000
• Giving us all the right to a basic bank account so that everyone can manage their finances
• Making additional annual payments of £100 into the Child Trust Fund accounts of disabled children (with severely disabled children to receive £200 per year)
• And we’ll bring in a 2.5% increase in the basic State Pension from April 2010, benefiting over 12 million pensioners.

And, despite this investment, Labour still plans to halve the deficit - a deficit – remember – which was created bailing out friends of the Tories – Bankers and the City of London.    We will do this while protecting key frontline services, as we have been doing already. The facts speak for themselves: unemployment is 2% lower than in the Euro area and in the US, while borrowing this year is £11bn less than forecast by experts.   Furthermore:

• Labour is going to cut down on waste, and make real and lasting changes to make government more efficient – saving £11bn
• Reducing the costs of public sector pay and pensions allowing us to save £4.4bn to get the deficit down
• Making tough choices across Whitehall to cut £5bn from low priority programmes so we can continue to support those frontline services which people really rely on
• And continuing our commitment to fairness by making sure that 60% of all tax rises this year are paid by the wealthiest 5% of society.

David Cameron and George Osborne would put the recovery at risk by cutting support to the economy now. They refuse to match Labour’s commitment to protect frontline services; and they would hit families on middle and modest incomes while pledging a £200,000 giveaway to the 3,000 wealthiest estates.

Victor Agarwal, Labour Candidate, North Swindon (and here I am campaigning recently in Penhill).