Economic Situation

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The detailed plans will be announced on 31 October so, picking up on what the noble Lord has said, there are five key areas where the detail is needed on what we are planning to do on growth. Obviously, just to pick up from the noble Lord’s experience, increasing private sector investment is critical, as are getting more people into work with the right skills, getting the housing market moving, improving infrastructure and accelerating delivery of major priority infrastructure projects. I could go on. This is what we are about. It is all to do with getting growth going and, as the Prime Minister has said, expanding the pie.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on twice playing a very straight bat on a very sticky wicket this morning. Will he convey to the Chancellor that it is really important that, on 31 October, we have announcements that stabilise things and give people proper encouragement and confidence? The present chaos cannot be allowed to continue.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend. We have already said that the announcement of the medium-term fiscal plan on 31 October will be accompanied by the independent OBR assessment of the economic and fiscal outlook. Much work is going on. My noble friend need not be reminded that this was originally going to be on 23 November; it has been deliberately brought forward to 31 October to provide further stability about what we are looking to do.