Oral Answers to Questions

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Resilience is a strong word, and thanks to the actions that this Government have taken over the past six months, the Office for Budget Responsibility has confirmed that the UK is now expected to avoid a recession this year.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

12. What recent assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU on the economy.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

17. What recent assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU on the economy.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Victoria Atkins)]

The UK has grown faster than France and at a similar rate to Germany since leaving the single market. It remains challenging to separate the effects of Brexit and wider global trends on the UK economy, such as the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, adding pressures to trade, prices and the wider economy. We continue to support businesses trading with the EU and help them to seize new opportunities with fast-growing economies around the world, including through our free trade agreement negotiations.

[Kirsten Oswald]

Happy Europe Day, Mr Speaker. In recent months, we have seen tech companies attack Brexit. The world-leading chip company Arm opted to float stock only in the US because of how bad a place the UK is to do business, so we have culture, tourism, the NHS and now tech all suffering because of Brexit. How grateful does the Minister feel that the Leader of the Opposition has dropped his and his party’s principles and are supporting this costly Brexit?

[Victoria Atkins]

Crikey, I am going to leave it to the Leader of the Opposition to flip-flop his way through that particular policy. What I can tell the hon. Lady is that we are the best place in Europe to invest in tech. We are only the third economy in the world with a $1 trillion tech sector; we are ranked as the world’s fourth most innovative economy; and we have created more unicorns than France and Germany combined.