Gross Domestic Product: Wales and the UK

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I think that noble Lords need to decide between them which one of them will speak.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The statistics that the noble Baroness refers to are more experimental than the ones that I used in my Answer, but they are being refined all the time and they can be subject to greater volatility due to the smaller size that they represent. However, the Government are delivering on their commitment to replace European funding in Wales. As I set out in my earlier Answer, that is just one of the UK Government’s investments in Wales that recognise its great potential to grow even further.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, talking of figures speaking volumes, the Minister will be aware that last month the annual fraud indicator for the United Kingdom, which of course includes Scotland and Wales as well as England and Northern Ireland, assessed it at £219 billion. Are those fraudulent transactions, the muling of that money and the transfer of it from shell company to shell company, and the export of it in crypto assets, counted as economic activity and therefore aggregated into GDP? When the money comes back into the country to buy houses and land, works of art and other things, is it counted as inward investment?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The classification of these matters is for the ONS, and I shall get the ONS to write to the noble Lord.