Debates between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Liz Kendall during the 2017-2019 Parliament

Spring Statement

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Liz Kendall
Tuesday 13th March 2018

(6 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Lord Hammond of Runnymede Portrait Mr Hammond
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Actually, while watching Russia Today, I saw a very interesting piece on the Venezuelan economy—apparently everything is going swimmingly.

Liz Kendall Portrait Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
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In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), the Chancellor suggested that our economy will be stronger once there is greater certainty over Brexit. Can he confirm that the Treasury analysis published last week showed that under all the Government’s Brexit options, long-term growth will be lower than it would otherwise have been? Does he not realise that that will be the true legacy of his Government and his party, which can no longer claim to act in the national economic interest?

Lord Hammond of Runnymede Portrait Mr Hammond
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Just to correct the hon. Lady on a couple of points, the report that she refers to, which was published by the Exiting the European Union Committee, was not done by HM Treasury. It was prepared, as I think she knows very well, by a cross-departmental group of Government economics professionals in response to the criticism that had been levied at the Treasury model that was used before the referendum. Of course it did not model the Government’s preferred outcome scenario; it modelled a couple of standardised outcome scenarios that the Prime Minister has already rejected. We are not going for a Norway model or a Canada model. We are negotiating with the EU for a bespoke solution. When we have made progress in those negotiations, we will model the outcome that we expect to get, and when Parliament comes to vote on this issue—hopefully later this year—it will have in front of it the output of that modelling.