Professor John McHale:

Under the Fiscal Responsibility Act, we are obliged to assess the prudence of the fiscal stance taken. We would not have said there was a deviation from the prudent path the Government had been on if we did not consider the situation to be serious. It goes back to what we have been discussing all along, that for the longer term, we must stop the pattern of pro-cyclical policy. What was done this year was very much fitting that pattern and very much against the spirit of the new framework being put in place. In that sense, we do think it is serious. However, the hope is that as we move into the next phase of the rules to which the Government has committed, we can put this behind us. If we follow the rules into the future and really internalise their spirit as being in our own interests, not something that is being imposed on us by the European Union but something we want to do ourselves because we do not want to go through a crisis again, this will be seen as somewhat of a blip along the way and not very serious after all. However, at this time, given that this has just happened and we do not know what will happen in the future, we do see it as-----