Lord Soley
Main Page: Lord Soley (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Soley's debates with the HM Treasury
(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Soley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their forecast of the maximum public debt–gross domestic product ratio in 2016–17.
Lord Newby
My Lords, the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast public sector net debt to be 85.6% of GDP in 2016-17.
Lord Soley
In 2010, the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised to eliminate the structural deficit and to reduce the percentage of national debt to GDP. Both of those will now fail to materialise—I would argue, through low growth. When do the Government think that they will achieve them and why do they think that they have failed to achieve them?
Lord Newby
My Lords, the figure I gave was for the peak level of net debt. After that, the level will fall. Of course, if growth proves to be higher than forecast, as seems likely, for this calendar year, net debt will be less over the period ahead than has been forecast.