Professor Michael McMahon:

The SPU included some of the things we did not want to drop to zero. They went out to 2027 and we welcome that. More broadly, we pushed for a long time to think about some kind of vehicle through which we could save in order to think about the future challenges we know are coming. That is coming on stream. Again, it is our job to push them to be as prudent as possible right now.

I have been on this council for five years and in that time, there have been occasions in which we have supported large-scale spending to support the economy because it needed it, such as during Covid.

One thing we often talk about is given how well the economy is doing when do we run prudent budgetary policy if not now. Prudent budgetary policy is not just not spending money. It is also budgeting well, budgeting carefully and thinking carefully about how you want to allocate within sectors and across sectors. That is what the job of the Government is.