Struggle against public debt must go on Today George Osborne will tell the House of Commons what progress the government is making in reaching our goal of eliminating the deficit. He will not say this but whether we get there in 2016 or 2018 is far from the greatest of our concerns. Balancing the books at all will have been a significant achievement. The coalition's policies in getting there are brave and correct. But this will only be the first battle honour in a protracted war on public debt. For when the government's bottom line turns black, we will still be left staring at a debt pile of £1.4tn, somewhere close to 80 per cent of national income. It is a burden that will take many years and many difficult political decisions to shift. We must then make the argument for why we must continue the fight: why debt sucks money out of the economy, limits investment and restricts growth; why debt makes it so hard for us to compete with less encumbered nations; why debt will prevent us from supporting an ageing population with ever-growing expectations of the welfare state; and why debt means future governments cannot promise voters the standard of living we have come to expect. A few minutes on the doorstep will tell you voters can be convinced. The risk lies with politicians. "Golden rules" were exposed as a sham and fiscal targets have been shown to be vulnerable to outside events. If we are to succeed in reducing our debt, we will need to legislate beyond the compass of one or two parliaments to ensure that governments can never again mortgage the future for short-term political ends. It is a conclusion many other countries have reached. Some have sought to place controls on public debt. But in seeking to contain debt, rather than address the cause itself, they have so far had very little success. Eurozone countries cannot agree on new strictures to replace the old Maastricht mandates that were so widely disobeyed. In the US, the one certain outcome of negotiations on the debt ceiling is that it will be raised, making it the 68th hike since 1962. Peering over the fiscal cliff may focus minds but the evidence from big western economies of debt-focused fiscal rules having their desired effect - of debt caps successfully capping debts - is close to zero. The more logical approach is to address excessive state spending directly. The Germans have adopted a deficit brake, which places a constitutional limit on both federal and local structural deficits. Yet even if it succeeds in limiting deficits, the law will not necessarily deliver significant and sustained reductions in the national debt. For that to happen, administrations must run a surplus. The Swedes have done precisely that. Having endured a burst housing bubble, banking crisis and recession in the 1990s, Sweden introduced a budget surplus law, which stipulated that governments set spending limits three years in advance and run a surplus equivalent to 1 per cent of GDP over the business cycle. Sweden has since reduced its debt to GDP ratio from 78 per cent in 2000 to 34 per cent today. In 2014 it will be 26 per cent. There are other factors, of course, but Sweden's budget surplus law has been crucial to this extraordinary success. As the government could only increase revenues by achieving economic growth, it has focused ministers on controlling spending rather than increasing tax. Because it applies to the whole business cycle, it has forced governments to bank strong surpluses in periods of growth so that they have headroom for fiscal expansion when the economy slows. And because spending limits must be approved by parliament, it has empowered the legislature to hold the government to account and helped forge a political consensus to bear down on debt. Responsible democracies defend the interests not only of current voters but also of those not yet old enough to defend themselves at the ballot box. Rough and ready fiscal handcuffs do not work but a budget surplus law has been shown to have had a profound effect. The chancellor should announce today that once his fiscal mandate is met, this is what he will put in its place. It would provide assurance about the government's intentions after the deficit is dealt with and, in securing the future of our nation, it would demonstrate to the electorate that we were serious about dealing with the national debt. The writer is Conservative member of parliament for Ipswich