Economic Forecasts

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I agree with my noble friend that we should try to deliver the best deal for this country that we can. Obviously, the analysis was based on a specific set of assumptions. They may have seemed sensible at the time but, with the benefit of hindsight, these things are always difficult. The Treasury also cited the uncertainty that a leave vote would cause, weighing on the economy, and it was therefore good to see certainty at the top of the Prime Minister’s list of objectives today.

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, not all facts are as rosy as the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, suggests. In hard facts, are we not dealing with a significant depreciation of the currency and a consequent rise in inflation which will cause difficulty for those of our fellow citizens who cannot readily raise their incomes? Is it not the case, whatever the rosy view on the other side of the House, that despite the drop in the value of the pound we have the highest levels of deficit on our current account ever recorded, so not much has yet fed through to our exporters?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

As a new Treasury Minister, I am very aware that I should not comment on currency movements, but we are very lucky in this country to have the independent Bank of England. It has an inflation target; we do not target the exchange rate. The performance of the economy has been stronger since Brexit than any of us feared with, for example, good household consumption figures recently.