Mr. Michael Tutty:

In respect of the alternatives on housing, the first area to look at is capital expenditure. Can we rein in some of the other capital expenditure to put more capital into housing? That is certainly the easiest way to do it. Raising revenue obviously is a much more difficult operation and even cutting current expenditure is difficult. We have had the experience that capital expenditure always is what gets cut whenever we need to do other things. I would therefore be wary of saying that other capital expenditure should be cut but in practice it is the easiest thing to do.

On personal debt as opposed to the national debt, looking at personal debt is not within our remit as the Government's Fiscal Advisory Council but it certainly is a significant issue from an overall economic point of view and undoubtedly the Government must pay attention to it. The Central Bank is even more important in that area, that is, in keeping an eye on how personal debt is moving and in making sure it does not get out of control once again.

On Brexit, the Deputy is quite right; we, and all agencies, need to watch closely. Progress in identifying what exactly is going to happen has been rather slow as the British have not yet made it clear what their end goal is. The negotiations have been moving rather slowly. In looking at the next budget - or at the economic forecasts for the coming years which are being made to inform the next budget - assumptions have to be made about where negotiations are going and we must cut our cloth to meet whatever those predictions show. It is disturbing in terms of the uncertainty it causes but until something more specific comes from the negotiations it is hard to know exactly what the implications will be for the future.

On corporation tax -----