2 July 1997: Brown pledges prudence

Delivering his first Budget, the Chancellor Gordon Brown told MPs he had identified the UK's four key economic problems: "instability, under-investment, unemployment, and waste of talent".

Stability, he claimed, could be delivered in part by the "golden rule", that "over the economic cycle the government will borrow only to invest, and that current spending will be met from taxation".

He also committed the UK to a "five-year deficit reduction plan", hailing these measures as an end to the "short-termism" of bygone Tory administrations.