By any objective assessment, that enormous support helped our country through one of the toughest challenges that we have ever faced—the biggest crisis outside war in recent memory. We have, of course, moved straight into another one. Across the House, there is recognition that the £400 billion of extra support that we put in place has benefited the country.
The hon. Gentleman talks about business costs. Of course, businesses had costs that we had to help them with, but to protect public health, steps were taken to close parts of the economy. We faced an extraordinary contraction. To avoid that, the Government had to step in and, in so doing, we lost 2 million jobs fewer than were predicted to go.