Government of France: Meetings

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Yes, that is certainly the intention. Those matters have been discussed both between the Prime Minister and Monsieur Hollande and between my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary and Laurent Fabius, the new French Foreign Secretary. Obviously a question was raised by our decision to go for the JSF variant rather than the original pattern under the strategic defence review. That has been discussed. Any suggestion of misunderstanding has been removed and both sides fully intend to co-operate very closely in the future on all defence matters.

[Lord Tomlinson]

My Lords, in an earlier reply, the Minister talked about the policies for constraint in public expenditure as well as those for growth. Can he give us a quick summary of the steps that Her Majesty’s Government are taking to promote growth at the moment?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

Not in the time allowed, no. There is a perfectly sensible proposition that, although the growth of public expenditure has been restrained—in some areas, not actually cut at all—this is a necessary part of getting a balanced, suitably relaxed monetary policy in as far as it can be relaxed, paving the way for further expenditure on infrastructure, of which some has been authorised. One hopes that in future there will be more. This is the rebalancing of the economy that all sensible people are aiming for.