Economic Growth
Baroness Bousted Excerpts(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Lord Livermore (Lab)
I do not think the noble Lord’s comments about the planning Bill would stand up to a moment’s scrutiny in the outside world. In answer to his specific question, GDP per capita is forecast by the OBR to rise by 5.6% over the course of this Parliament.
Baroness Bousted (Lab)
Will my noble friend the Minister note that since the election interest rates have been cut five times? Will he also agree that this Government are not going to be lectured by an Opposition who, when in government, presided over the longest period of wage stagnation since the Napoleonic Wars, with real wages not returning to pre-2008 levels until 2025?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
My noble friend is absolutely right. The last Conservative Government saw historic mistakes made over austerity, the Brexit deal and the Liz Truss mini-Budget. The consequences of those for working people were very real. Living standards are forecast to grow, as I have said, over four times faster during this Parliament than they did in the previous Parliament.
Spring Statement
Baroness Bousted Excerpts(6 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Livermore (Lab)
The impact assessment that has been done so far does not include the £1 billion re-investment, so I am not sure that we can look at those figures right now. On real household disposable income, living standards will now grow this year at double the rate expected at the time of the Budget. The noble Baroness was a Treasury Minister when we saw the worst ever Parliament for living standards in history. Living standards will rise twice as fast in this Parliament compared with the last.
Baroness Bousted (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said that we all want growth. She will perhaps have seen the comments of the shadow Chancellor. He admitted that the party opposite’s approach to defining its economic policy is a
“blank sheet of paper exercise”.
There have been reports of Conservative Party researchers scouring their archives for policy inspiration. Is that not why we had no growth under the last Administration and why this Government need to correct the course, through the Autumn Budget and the Spring Statement?