UK Economy

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bim Afolami]

I do not think that I will quite agree with my right hon. Friend. It is very important that we leave the Bank of England to do its work and respect its independent mandate, but that, from the Treasury, we do what we can to bring inflation down and support it in that mandate. As I said, the Labour party’s plans—whether it claims to have dropped them or not—will lead to an increase in borrowing or an increase in taxes, which will significantly damage that aim.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I think the Minister is failing the audition. Labour will not take lectures from him about borrowing, which was at 67% of GDP when we left office and is now nearly 100%. He is claiming that somehow growth is happening, but we are actually in a recession, which means that there is no growth; in fact, there is negative growth. GDP per capita fell in every quarter of last year, meaning that everybody is getting worse off under his appalling stewardship of the economy. Is it not time that the junior Minister went back to his boss and told him, “It’s all over. Time’s up. Call the general election.”?

[Bim Afolami]

It is definitely above my pay grade to call elections. In relation to GDP per capita statistics, which are important—the point of them is to try to get a sense of what is happening to individuals or to individual households and families—I would say—[Interruption.] Let me—[Interruption.] I wish the shadow Chancellor would allow me to respond. Real household incomes, which are as good a measure as any to see what is happening to individuals and families in our economy, are up 12% since 2010. If we are looking at people at the bottom of the income scale, the rise in the national living wage that comes in in April will mean a rise since 2010 of about 30% in real terms for people on full-time minimum wages. Those two statistics are examples of what has happened to real people on the ground.