Mr Deputy Speaker, there is another prediction the OBR make today the House will want to know about.

Six years ago Britain suffered a Great Recession

We had the biggest bank bail out in the world.

We had the biggest deficit since the war.

We suffered the deepest recession in modern times.

But later this year the OBR expects Britain to reach the point when our economy is finally larger than before it collapsed six years ago.

That’s because we’re now growing faster than Germany, faster than Japan, faster than the US – in fact there is no major advanced economy in the world growing faster than Britain today.

But we should be alert to the risks.

The euro area is slowly recovering but as the OBR caution “further damaging instability remains possible”.

There is volatility in emerging markets.

And while for now the OBR do not expect the situation in Ukraine to have a “large impact” on us, they warn that an escalation risks higher commodity prices, higher inflation and lower growth.

It’s a reminder of why we need to build our economy’s resilience.

EMPLOYMENT FORECASTS

At home the biggest risk is clear: abandoning the economic plan that is working.

And nowhere is the success of that plan more evident than in job creation.

Today again we are reminded that the most important consequence of our plan is more people in work – with each job meaning a family more secure.

The pace of net job creation under this government has been three times faster than in any other recovery on record.

1.3 million more people in work.

The latest figures today show a staggering 24% fall in the claimant count in just one year,

and the fastest fall in the youth claimant count since 1997.

The OBR today forecast one and a half million more jobs over the next five years.

Unemployment down from the 8% we inherited to just over 5%.

And the OBR predict earnings to grow faster than inflation this year and in every year of the forecast. That’s why the country can afford a real terms increase in the National Minimum Wage.

Mr Deputy Speaker, this is a government whose plan is delivering jobs.

We now have:

- a record number in work.

- a record number of women in work.

- and for the first time in 35 years, a higher employment rate than the United States of America.

That’s what we mean when we say we’re getting Britain working.

FISCAL

Mr Deputy Speaker, there can be no economic security if there is no control of the public finances.

Before I presented my first Budget to this House, the government was borrowing one pound in every four it spent – and we were faced with the threat of a sovereign debt crisis.

We have taken difficult decisions.

But thanks to those decisions, the IMF now say that we are achieving the largest reduction in both the headline and the structural deficits of any major advanced economy in the world.

There were those who said repeatedly that the deficit was going to go up.

Instead I can tell the House that the Office for Budget Responsibility have revised down the underlying deficit in every year of their forecast.

Before we came to office the deficit was 11%.

This year they say it will be 6.6% - lower than forecast and down a third.

Next year, 5.5% - down a half.

Then it will fall to 4.2%, 2.4% and reach 0.8% in 2017-18.

In 2018-19, they are forecasting no deficit at all – instead, at plus 0.2%, a small surplus.

But only if we work through the plan.

The government’s fiscal mandate is met – and continues to be met a year early.

And yet while the underlying structural deficit falls, it falls no faster than was previously forecast – despite higher growth.

This goes to the heart of the argument this government has made:

Faster growth alone will not balance the books.

Securing Britain’s economic future means there will have to be more hard decisions; more cuts.

The question for the British people is: who has the credibility to deliver them?

Let me turn to the underlying cash borrowing numbers.

Britain was borrowing £157 billion a year before we came to office.

This year we expect to borrow £108 billion.

That’s £12 billion less than forecast a year ago.

Indeed even since the Autumn Statement the OBR have revised down borrowing in every single year.

In 2014-15 they say it will fall to £95 billion.

Then it falls again to £75 billion in 2015-16, then £44 billion, then down to £17 billion.

In 2018-19 we won’t be borrowing at all. We will have a small surplus of almost £5 billion.

Taken together, these new figures mean Britain will be borrowing £24 billion less than was forecast. That’s more than we spend in an entire year on the Police and Criminal Justice system.

Lower borrowing and a smaller deficit mean less debt.

While we meet the debt target one year late as before, the OBR have revised down national debt in every single year of the forecast.

They expect it to be 74.5% of GDP this year; 77.3% next year; peaking at 78.7% in 2015-16 – lower than the 80% previously forecast - before falling to 78.3% in 2016-17, then falling to 76.5% and then 74.2% in 2018-19.

So Mr Deputy Speaker,

Growth up.

The deficit set to halve.

Debt is lower.

And the biggest single saving of all is a £42 billion reduction in the interest payments we will have to make on that debt.

Saving every family in the nation the equivalent of almost £2,000.

Money that was going to creditors around the world, now going to pay for the NHS and other public services.