Lord Sikka
Main Page: Lord Sikka (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Sikka's debates with the HM Treasury
Budget: Taxes and Borrowing
Lord Sikka Excerpts(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Lord Livermore (Lab)
I can. We said exactly that in the Budget.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, I have long said that government debt is overstated, and I am surprisingly supported by a man called Jacob Rees-Mogg. On 2 August 2022, he effectively said that the balance at that time of £875 billion of quantitative easing—the amount owed by the Government to the Government—should not be included in the national debt. Its exclusion would reduce public debt to 60% of GDP, meaning that the Government would have more headroom to borrow, invest and grow the economy. Does the Minister agree?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I absolutely agree with the importance of investment to the economy, which is why we have set out an investment rule which enables exactly that. The Government’s number one commitment is to economic and fiscal stability, which is why we have put in place those robust fiscal rules. It is interesting to note that average borrowing over the next five years will be 2.6% of GDP compared to 5.6% of GDP over the previous 14 years.