THE important event last week – the Autumn Statement – was, completely understandably, overshadowed by the very sad passing of Nelson Mandela.

Like most people, I had never met him but I suspect that there are very few people who do not have an opinion of him.

That he was a remarkable man is beyond dispute.

His ability to not just forgive his persecutors, but to embrace them and use their help to unify a divided nation is an inspiration to us all – especially those in politics.

Indeed he is a guiding light to anyone who genuinely wants to make a difference.

The autumn statement was important. It heralded upward estimates of economic recovery and reaffirmed that the recession after 2007 was deeper than we had originally thought.

As a member of the Treasury Select Committee, I am spending all of this week reviewing the data and proposals and we will publish a report in due course.

But we are hearing a fairly unified message from a series of economists that the austerity measures are the only way to resolve the problems created by poor government spending decisions from around 2000 (when the small budget surplus started to be frittered away) leading up to the crash in 2007/8.

And there is fairly unified agreement that the measures introduced since 2010 to help businesses and households are working. 

It’s been slower than expected and, again, there tends to be agreement that external factors (the Eurozone crises, global economic slowdown etc) have not helped the recovery. But we are back on the path to recovery and it is down to businesses and individuals meeting the challenges of the recession.

Whilst the government can lay the framework for recovery, it is down to people making the change and there is strong recognition that this is a recovery led by businesses taking the plunge and households doing their bit.

Where I have concerns is the area of household vulnerability. Currently, household debt has stood at around the £1.45 trillion level since 2008. Household debt increased by around £950 billion between 1997 and 2007 and it is households that fuelled the “Brown Bubble” leading up to the crisis.

This means that some households are vulnerable to rising interest rates.

More alarmingly, household debt is expected to rise as people take on debt to buy homes.

It is household debt that keeps me awake at night.