Chris Leslie MP, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, responding to today’s public sector finance figures, said:

“David Cameron and George Osborne have now borrowed more in the three years since May 2010 than Labour did over 13 years.

“This is the cost of their economic failure and the three damaging years of flatlining and falling living standards we have seen since the election.

“David Cameron and George Osborne are now set to break their promise to balance the books by 2015. And borrowing is forecast to be over £200 billion more than planned simply to pay for the costs of their economic failure.

“This failure to balance the books means the next Labour government will have to make difficult decisions on spending. But we will make different choices to secure a strong and sustained recovery that delivers rising living standards for the many, not just a few at the top. That’s the way to get the deficit down and do so in a fairer and more balanced way.”