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Pledges record source of pride: PM

14:05, Jan 9 2013

 

An audit of progress on Government pledges will show "a record to be proud of", David Cameron has told MPs.

The Prime Minister promised the House of Commons the document would give the "full, frank... and completely unvarnished" truth about how the Government was getting on with delivering the 399 promises contained in the 2010 Coalition Agreement.

But Labour released its own "audit of broken promises", listing 40 areas in which it said the coalition had failed to live up to its pledges.

Top of the list was Chancellor George Osborne's claim that he would be able to balance the nation's books within five years of the coalition's first term in office - something which is not now expected to happen until 2018 at the earliest.

The audit is understood to be an annexe to the Government's Mid-Term Review, but did not feature when the review was launched with great fanfare at a Downing Street press conference by Mr Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on Monday.

The audit's existence was only revealed when one of Mr Cameron's senior advisers was photographed in Downing Street carrying a document discussing the advantages and disadvantages of releasing it.

At the first session of Prime Minister's Questions after the Christmas break, Labour leader Ed Miliband demanded to know why publication of the annexe had been delayed.

Branding Mr Cameron a "PR man who can't even do a relaunch", the Labour leader told MPs: "His adviser said that they shouldn't publish the secret audit because it had problematic areas, it would lead to unfavourable copy and would identify broken pledges. Was it his decision not to publish the audit because - and I quote from his adviser - it would overshadow favourable coverage?"

Mr Cameron retorted: "We will be publishing every single audit of every single promise - all 399 pledges set out in the Mid-Term Review. Unlike the party opposite, this will be full, it will be frank, it will be completely unvarnished and you will see it this afternoon.

"We said we would cut the deficit, it's down by 25%. We said we would cut immigration, it's down by 25%. We said we would rebalance the economy, one million private sector jobs. That is a record to be proud of."

 
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