We have management questions. On increasing the basic state pension in line with earnings, because we have made a clear promise and said that the increase in the pension age has to be brought forward, that is an affordable and deliverable commitment from the Conservative Party.

I think you can look at the British economy with confidence.

People know that billions of pounds are wasted. Billions of pounds never get near the families that need it. It is an absolute outrage that hard-working people go out to work every day, get up early, come back late, don't see enough of their families in order to pay taxes to fund vast bureaucracies that are inefficient in order to fund a welfare system which allows too many people to sit for the whole of their lives on out-of-work benefits without going out to look for work.

Well you know I've attracted a lot of criticism by, for example, suggesting that child benefit should be taken away from higher rate taxpaying families.

No other chancellor in the long history of the office has felt the need to pass a law in order to convince people he has the political will to implement his own Budget.

Just as we should never balance the budget on the backs of the poor, so it is an economic delusion to think you can balance it only on the wallets of the rich.

If we don't get a grip on government spending, there will be no growth.