Budget Deficit

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

My noble friend probably thinks that Moody’s have in mind what I have in mind: the policies of Mr Ed Balls. However, the chances of those being implemented are, fortunately, small. Only yesterday, a respected City broker from BGC Partners said:

“Ed Balls can whinge all he likes but you only have to look at a compendium of 10 year bond yields to know that the UK Chancellor, George Osborne is on the right track. For the Chancellor to take his foot off the gas in terms of cutting the debt reduction would be insanity personified!”.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, when it comes to whingeing the Government take first prize. They spend their time blaming either the previous Government or external forces. When will they take responsibility for the fact that they promised to encourage growth and have failed to do so, and promised to reduce the deficit and are failing on that? How much must the British people suffer before the Government change their policy?

[Lord Sassoon]

My Lords, these are very difficult economic circumstances, in this country and globally. However, to give one example of where growth policies are coming through, there are 60,000 more people in employment than there were one quarter ago. That takes the total number in employment in this country to 29.13 million—a rise of more than 250,000 in the past 18 months. We must not play down the strength of the private sector in the UK economy.