Economic Policies

Lord Barnett Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

The noble Lord, Lord Low of Dalston, raises some important points. Let me try to summarise. On the one hand, the public sector deficit has already been reduced from 11% to 8% of GDP. Public sector employment is down more than 400,000 from the unsustainable levels that it had reached. That is very real progress and we are on track on that dimension.

On the other side, we should not underplay the real success of the private sector in the most difficult and challenging conditions. Some 800,000 new jobs have been created since the election—166,000 new private sector jobs in the past quarter. Unemployment is down by 51,000 in the latest quarter. The private sector is doing a fantastic job to get this country out of the mess that we were left with. That is what it is all about.

[Lord Barnett]

My Lords, last week, the noble Lord misled the House in a reply to a question from my noble friend Lord Peston. He said that the IMF supported the Government's “fiscal course”. May I quote directly from what the IMF said? It said that although it endorsed the deficit cutting plans of the Government, if growth failed to pick up it would help to consider delaying cuts in expenditure and also,

“focus on temporary tax cuts and greater”,

infrastructure expenditure. The noble Lord likes the IMF. Will he take its advice?

[Lord Sassoon]

I did not bring my IMF quote book today to trade on this one, because the Question is about the Government's assessment of the success of their economic policies, not what the IMF is saying about them. I am sure that we will come back to that on another occasion.