Business and the Economy

Antonia Bance Excerpts

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Neil O’Brien]

One of the things that happened during our time in government was a massive global pandemic that brought the entire world economy to a complete halt, but memories are short. Perhaps more importantly, every single thing that this Government are doing is bad for growth. That is the bottom line.

[Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)]

Perhaps the hon. Member has not had a chance to see the piece of work produced by a former shadow Chancellor that sets out the relative recovery rates of different world economies in the developed world since the pandemic. It shows that the United Kingdom is right at the bottom of the pile thanks to the mess left to us by Liz Truss crashing the UK economy.

[Neil O’Brien]

Labour Members who were not in the House at the time—it is before their time—will not remember that the deficit we inherited in 2010 was twice the size of the one that Labour has inherited, and the structural deficit was twice as big. Indeed, we went into the global recession—the financial crisis—with the largest structural deficit in our peacetime history. That is the record of the last Labour Government.

We had had a recession that was the size of the 1980s recession and the 1990s recession put together, and when I say we were cleaning up the mess—I am afraid I am going to use a generation X metaphor—I mean it was like one of those enormous brontosaurus poops in the film “Jurassic Park”. We were cleaning up a big mess, and it took us a long time. We had to make some difficult decisions, particularly during the coalition years, to clean that up. Members have referred to my peroration, but I am afraid I am only getting started. [Interruption.] The House groans at the prospect.