It's a bit of a rite of passage in this country that when a new government comes into office the new Chancellor stands up in the House of Commons, sucks their teeth, shakes their head . . . and tells us we're all going to hell in a handcart because of the incompetence of the last lot.

This week is no different. Rachel Reeves came up with the familiar line: "We knew it was bad, we didn't know it was THIS bad" before putting the brakes on many decisions of the previous government.

But is it worse than it was for George Osborne in 2010? That, of course, all depends on who you ask.

It is pretty clear that the previous government had made some pretty big spending commitments that were not fully funded - including the new hospitals programme that is clearly vital in so far as three local hospitals are concerned.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said as much in the wake of Ms Reeves announcement. They also pointed out that the £22bn "black hole" almost exactly matched the National Insurance cut announced by Jeremy Hunt in his last budget.

However they also pointed out that many of the figures being quoted by Ms Reeves were in the public domain before the general election so perhaps should not have come as too much of a shock to incoming ministers.

The Labour Party did come under some fire during the campaign for a lack of specific spending commitments - this was clearly the reason why.

However some will ask if it was really necessary to try to stick to such tight tax promises given it was always clear that Labour would win the election anyway.

Clearly Mr Hunt's National Insurance cut was designed to sabotage the incoming Labour government that he knew was on the way. In those circumstances was it really necessary for Ms Reeve to pledge to retain the cut?

On public sector pay, the rises announced were recommended by an independent pay review board which had looked at the fact that Public Sector workers had seen their salaries fall in real terms over the last 14 years.

Governments of both parties usually try to accept independent pay review board recommendations - there is little point in going through the administration and cost of setting them up if you're not prepared to accept what they have to say.

But meeting their recommendations this year is expensive and I can understand those people who ask if it's right go give teachers a reasonable pay rise while taking winter fuel payments away from pensioners receiving marginally over the Pension Credits threshold.

And the change is also worrying for charities like the Suffolk Foundation which relies on donations of fuel payments from wealthier pensioners of their winter fuel payment to boost their annual "Surviving Winter" campaign.

The change will, it is estimated, save the government about £1.4bn this year. I suppose that is a significant amount - but it will undoubtedly cost quite a bit of goodwill.

From what I've heard from local Labour MPs the expectation is that, notwithstanding the review of the hospital rebuilding process, plans to rebuild the three East Anglia hospitals on the list - the  West Suffolk, James Paget at Gorleston and the Queen Elizabeth at Kings Lynn are near certainties to go ahead very soon because they are all literally falling down.

But clearly the statement did cause a great deal of concern - and it is a bit difficult to understand how growth is going to drive the progress of this country if the new roads, rail lines and other infrastructure projects that would be needed to underpin it have been either delayed or cancelled altogether.

The opinions expressed in this column are the personal views of Paul Geater and do not necessarily reflect views held by this newspaper, its sister publications or its owner and publisher Newsquest Media Group Ltd.