Public Sector: Debt

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord is an assiduous reader of publications by the IMF and will have seen that, within recent days, the IMF has upgraded its forecasts for growth to 2.4% next year and 2.2% the next year, which is higher than for France and Germany.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister recall that during the time when the economy was clearly not growing at all but flatlining, the Government repeatedly said that it was due to the eurozone or the weather but nothing to do with the Government? Can the Minister please confirm that it is his view from the Front Bench that, if there is any upturn in the economy at all at the moment, it will be nothing to do with the Government?

[Lord Newby]

It is not a question of whether there is any upturn in the economy; there is a very significant upturn. Government policy ensured that, when we were facing very strenuous headwinds, the economy did better than it would otherwise have done, and it will do better in the upturn now as a result of a whole raft of policies that this Government are pursuing.