Economy: Purchasing Managers’ Index

Lord Howarth of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

I am sure that those who forecast a figure of zero for GDP in February and then found out it was 0.2% might be a little cheered up this morning. On other reasons to be cheerful, what about the fact that unemployment, debt and taxes are all falling while exports, growth, GDP and real wages are all rising?

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, does not the confidence manifested in the purchasing managers’ index, as the Minister has said, continuously over the past 32 months—pretty much the whole period since the referendum—despite the iterations of Project Fear and the lucubrations of the remain establishment, show that the majority of UK manufacturers are undismayed by a post-Brexit future? If their confidence is to be sustained and new investment is to be unleashed, is it not vital that indecisions and uncertainties about Brexit are swiftly brought to an end by our actually leaving the EU and not allowed to persist for up to another six months, or possibly even longer?