Chairperson, I wanted to respond to the statement made by the hon Louis Green, but since he has left the House, I thought that perhaps after that Sarah Palin-style exegesis on economics it is probably just as well. But for his benefit later on, as well as for anybody else's, the facts are as follows. The IMF, which has actually consistently under-called the extent of the economic crisis, has said that next year the developed world as a whole will be in recession, that is to say, their economies will contract for two quarters.
The developing world as a whole will not go into recession, but will suffer reduced growth. I think where we need to be very clear is that we are not saying that because we won't be in a recession next year that we won't be seriously affected by an economic crisis, one which is not of our making and has its origins in the USA. We are going to be affected by the decline in economic growth in the world as a whole; the decline in demand and export opportunities and prices for mineral products as well as a decline in flows of capital particularly to emerging markets.
What this requires of us is that we are going to have to redouble our efforts under much more difficult circumstances to defend our infrastructure investment programmes, industrial policy direction programmes and our small business programmes. All of them are going to have to unfold under much more difficult circumstances.
That is where the real economic policy debate would be. Also, I rather suspect that the voters of the country would respond in the same way as they did to Sarah Palin - they will roundly reject those politicians who stand up and have nothing sensible to say about these very important matters. I thank you very much. [Applause.]