UK Gross Domestic Product

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is interesting that the Minister talks about the covid testing scheme. Is it perhaps the case that the covid testing scheme is artificially inflating GDP, rather than the opposite way around? The UK is lagging behind every single OECD country apart from Russia. Manufacturing, construction and services are all suffering. That has all been made worse by a Brexit that Scotland did not vote for.

British Chambers of Commerce research shows that input inflation is running at 17%. Businesses simply cannot afford to absorb those costs when faced with increased energy prices with no additional support, employee costs through the national insurance tax hike—a tax on jobs—and wage pressures, so will he provide extra support to businesses to protect them and their consumers through this period, or will he wait until these additional costs in the supply chain are further passed on to the already struggling consumer? How does he expect people to eat when food prices are soaring, and for manufacturers to make things in factories when they cannot afford to get the goods to produce them never mind get them out into the shops and have people buy them?