Luciana Berger
Main Page: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)Department Debates - View all Luciana Berger's debates with the HM Treasury
(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is right. The UK had the highest structural deficit of the G7 going into the financial crisis. That was confirmed by the IMF just before Christmas. He is also right about our trade patterns. When this Government came to office we were exporting more to Ireland than to the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India and China—combined. We are seeking to expand our trade with those countries and it has been going up markedly. I think there has been an almost 100% increase in our trade with China and, of course, the Prime Minister led a high-powered business delegation to India only last week.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Chancellor remind the House and the country how many billions of pounds his Government have borrowed since he came to office?
Mr Osborne
We borrow money because we are running a deficit and we are trying to get it down from the 11.5% that we inherited. The deficit has actually come down by a quarter over the past couple of years.