Mr. Sebastian Barnes:

When we appeared before the joint committee six months ago, one of things we said was that these pressures were already being felt and that we had drawn attention to them. We also said it was very important that the comprehensive expenditure review addressed these issues and exactly how all of this was going to add up. We have seen two things since. First, the medium-term forecasts in the budget were just technical assumptions. They do not really line up with various statements. Also, the comprehensive expenditure review has not really delivered in giving us the detail of how all of this is going to fit together. There are important choices to be made, but it is not clear they have been made, both on the tax and revenue and expenditure sides and how they all fit together. That is a very serious concern.