Stephen Timms
Main Page: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)Department Debates - View all Stephen Timms's debates with the HM Treasury
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Osborne
The funding for lending scheme, which the Governor and I announced at the Mansion House, is explicitly designed to address the high bank funding costs and it is tied to lending into the UK economy, so that is precisely what this new scheme is designed to do.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
3. What recent estimate he has made of the level of economic growth in 2012.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)
The Office for Budget Responsibility is responsible for producing independent economic and fiscal forecasts. In its March economic and fiscal outlook, the OBR forecasted economic growth of 0.8% in 2012, but more recent independent forecasts have been lower, reflecting the fact that the euro-area crisis remains the biggest risk to the UK recovery.
Stephen Timms
A worryingly large jump in Government borrowing has been reported today. Why is it that of all the G20 countries, only Britain and Italy are in recession?
Danny Alexander
The right hon. Gentleman refers to borrowing, but his Front-Bench team wants us to borrow tens of billions of pounds more, which is not the right response. If he studies the figures carefully, he will see that departmental spending is rising much less than was forecast, but, of course, the automatic stabilisers in the economy are operating. That is precisely the flexibility in our plan, which is tough on the structural deficit but supportive of the economy.