The economy is out of recession but we’re not out of the woods yet. So far we have had one quarter of positive growth, but some other economies shrank again in the first quarter of 2010 after growing at the end of last year. We cannot be complacent that the UK, or world, economy will recover quickly or robustly. Indeed, the chancellor had to revise down forecasts for growth in this year and next, which throws in to focus the fragility of the economic recovery.

The Tories think you can cut your way out of recession while Labour knows that cuts now risk a double dip recession – more unemployment, more home repossessions, more business failures and more pain for families up and down the country. Cameron and Osborne say there is no choice, that we must slash spending – that we cannot afford to continue investment in schools, Sure Start or policing. But there is a choice. It is not inevitable that frontline services have to be cut and it is not the choice Darling made today.

Indeed, if you don’t invest in future growth then you risk making the recession and debt worse: in fact because of measures to keep people in work and to bring in money through the bankers bonus, unemployment is 500,000 lower than anticipated and the deficit is £11 billion less than forecast at the end of last year. Even now, UK government debt is lower than in the United States, Germany and France. Extra spending during the recession has been affordable, and it has been essential to avoid a recession becoming a depression. We are now at a crossroads in the economy – under the Tories the recovery would stall, and their irresponsible cuts risk the economy going backwards.

In contrast to the Tories’ ideological commitment to big cuts, Alistair Darling today made the right judgement between finding the money to maintain spending on frontline services, investing in our future prosperity, and halving the budget deficit in four years.

The most effective way out of recession and to reduce the budget deficit is to get the economy moving again by investing in our future. Jobs need strategic support and today’s £2 billion for a Green Investment Bank will help re-balance the UK economy, making it less reliant on financial services and consumer spending, with more emphasis on advanced manufacturing, research, design and new technologies. This hope and optimism for the future – Labour’s age of opportunity – contrasts starkly with Cameron and Osborne’s age of austerity. In Yorkshire where I live, Labour’s green investment means clean coal technology in Doncaster, offshore wind on the Humber, investment in research and science at our universities, and High Speed Rail linking Scotland and London via our great Northern cities, not least Leeds. It is a future we can all take part in, but it is a future that business and government need to build together. The Green New Deal can transform the British economy as we rise to meet the dual challenges of economic restructuring and climate change.

While Labour invests in the future, the Tories do not have a plan for recovery. Cameron promises a budget within fifty days of getting elected. But today he had a chance to set out what he would do differently and he didn’t or couldn’t tell us. He says he will cut spending this year, but he won’t say how or where. He says he will cut the deficit faster and further than Labour, but not how far or how fast. It is likely that in six weeks’ time we will have a general election and yet still we have no substance from the Tories. They are not telling us what they would do because they fear that if they let the cat out of the bag voters will turn against them, because the limited things we do know prioritise a privileged few, not the mainstream majority. The Tories want to scrap Sure Start as a universal service and restrict tax credits (that have helped 440,000 extra families through the recession, by an average of £38 a week). That would mean an awful lot of people worse off in order to fund a tax break of £200,000 to the richest 3,000 estates in the country, one of the most regressive policy proposals ever dreamt up, and far removed from the freezing of inheritance tax for four years and the crackdown on tax evasion – including by non-doms in Belize – announced by Darling today.

The next election offers a clear choice. A choice about what sort of country you want Britain to be, what sort of future you want to see. A choice about investing in our future prosperity or an age of austerity for the hard-working majority. Darling set out Labour’s vision. It’s a vision to fight for and a fight we cannot afford to lose.