Oral Answers to Questions

George Mudie Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that we need to be vigilant about aggressive tax avoidance and the diversion of profits from where genuine economic activity occurs. That is why the Chancellor of the Exchequer is leading the way on that, working with the German Finance Minister, and why we had the announcement from Mexico yesterday that the G20 is focusing on that and encouraging the OECD to progress its work so that we can deal with this as soon as possible.

[Mr George Mudie (Leeds East) (Lab)]

18. What estimate he has made of the level of economic growth since the October 2010 spending review.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid)]

The economy grew by 1.8% in 2010 and 0.9% in 2011. The Office for Budget Responsibility is responsible for producing independent economic and fiscal forecasts.

[Mr Mudie]

The Minister will be aware that the Chancellor boasted that there would be growth of 2.6% in 2011 and 2.8% in 2012. Actually, growth has averaged 0.6% over the past two years. What went wrong?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman is a distinguished member of the Treasury Committee, and I think he knows better than that. The Government introduced an independent Office for Budget Responsibility to make forecasts, and the OBR report in October 2012 said that there were several reasons why the out-turn has been different from the forecasts, including

“deteriorating export markets…impaired credit conditions”

and “euro area anxiety”. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can welcome yesterday’s report from the Centre for Economics and Business Research, which said that Britain would be the fastest-growing economy in Europe in 2013 and 2014. [Interruption.]