Economic Update

Lord Flight Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con) [V]]

My Lords, we expect to provide over £3 billion-worth of support to local authorities over the next year, on top of the support we have already given. For example, over Christmas we provided the £1,000 Christmas support payment to wet-led pubs in tiers that were subject to lockdown. I feel the noble Lord might be being a little harsh; there has been a great deal of intervention to support local authorities and small businesses.

[Lord Flight (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government and the Treasury on a remarkably quick response through very large programmes of financing. I have a simple question: we see different figures of the impact on the economy, but what was the net UK economy contraction during the calendar year 2020 and what is the forecast contraction for the calendar year 2021?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I do not have those figures to hand, but there will be ongoing economic Statements and my right honourable friend the Chancellor will address this in his Budget in a few weeks’ time. It is perhaps worth pointing out international comparisons; the way the ONS uses data here has had a detrimental impact on how it has reported on the shrinkage of our economy, because it considers outputs instead of inputs on things such as the salaries of teachers and other civil servants, who were not necessarily working because of the crisis but were still being paid. There will be more information on this, particularly in the Budget.