Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity

Dennis Skinner Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Hosie]

Yes, I have seen the OBR forecasts, and I will quote some of them later. However, I am taken by what the Chancellor said more recently than the latest OBR forecast, which is that it is no longer a case of “mission accomplished”, almost as if he is getting his excuses in first and preparing to blame other people. Despite the OBR forecasts, things are not all hunky-dory; everything in the garden is not rosy. As I pointed out, when we are looking at GDP growth over a decade worse than that of Japan’s lost decade, it would be wrong to be complacent like some of those in the hon. and learned Lady’s Government.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

When the Chancellor said to the country at large, and to the Tory press in particular, that the economy was running into the buffers, was he not really demonstrating that the long-term economic plan was just a mirage?

[Stewart Hosie]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The long-term economic plan is just a soundbite. It was predicated on the deficit being reduced, the debt being reduced, and borrowing falling to barely £20 billion last year. Every single one of the targets the Government set, they failed to meet. The Chancellor did not meet a single one of the key fiscal targets that he set for himself in the previous Parliament.

The key thing about the impact of trade and exports on GDP is that the figures are negative and have been marked down. I ask the House to consider how different that reality is from the promise made by the Chancellor when he stated that exports would be a significant contributor to GDP growth, primarily to shift the economy away from a reliance on household consumption. As we saw in yesterday’s reports, because industrial output is down and exports are likely to continue to fall, and certainly not to grow in the way that he has promised, we will continue to see a dependence on household consumption and a rise in household debt that is inconsistent with a properly rebalanced economy.