Mr. Sebastian Barnes:

That is absolutely right. There is a social reason and an economic reason to protect people on lower incomes. One of the points that is striking about the budget is the increase in core spending. It is almost entirely dedicated to raising welfare payments, pensions and public sector pay. There is really very little in the budget, apart from that, because the overwhelming priority is to protect those people. In a normal year, we would expect the Government to shift spending on different new projects, but this year that has been the focus, which is understandable given what a priority it is.