IMF Economic Outlook

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, as ever. Of course she misses out the fact that we have the lowest unemployment for the best part of 50 years. We should all be very proud of that. We know the scars caused by high unemployment and we know that when the pandemic started, unemployment was predicted to finish 2 million higher than it ended up because of the measures taken by this Government and by the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor, with furlough and so on. We will continue to support households. The hon. Lady talks about a winter of discontent, but, as I said, we are providing £1,300 of support for a typical family with their energy bills this winter. That shows we are on their side, but we need to go further, and we do that by delivering on the target to halve inflation.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

The shadow Chancellor mentions that our growth rate is not as great as Russia’s. What she does not mention is that the IMF said that of Germany too, because both Germany and the United Kingdom are dependent on gas. My question to my hon. Friend the Minister is this: how many times over the last 10 years has the IMF had to revise its economic forecast? If he does not know the answer, will he please write to me?

[James Cartlidge]

It would be a pleasure, as ever, to write to my hon. Friend. He mentions countries dependent on gas, but we should be very proud that last year more than 40% of our electricity was generated from renewables and just 1.5% from coal. We have had the fastest-falling emissions in the G7, and a recent report in The Times confirmed that we can get those lower emissions with higher growth. The report said that jobs in net zero sectors pay £10,000 more than the national average, and that south Yorkshire, north Derbyshire, Tyneside and Teesside are all hotspots for net zero jobs. That shows we can deliver on net zero and economic growth.