UK Parliament / Open data

Pre-Budget Report

Proceeding contribution from Lord Myners (Labour) in the House of Lords on Tuesday, 27 January 2009. It occurred during Debate on Pre-Budget Report.
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Vinson, raised questions about quantitative easing. The most recent announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer included a reference to the £50 billion fund, which I hope will be large enough to buy the whole of my noble friend’s portfolio, but possibly not. He said that this created the architecture that could be used for quantitative easing but then went on to say that the question of whether quantitative easing was used was a matter for the Monetary Policy Committee in engagement with the Treasury. He also said that, if this were contemplated before enactment, there would be a public exchange of correspondence between the MPC and the Treasury. The noble Lord, Lord Blyth of Rowington, who served with me many years ago on the board of a strong and well performing bank, questioned the Government’s economic record of achievement. I am the first to admit that in this House, as in other places, we can be slightly selective in our use of data. I shall be as guilty of that as anyone and point out that in six of the past seven years the UK was either the strongest or the second strongest-growing economy in the G7 and that over the past 10 years we have enjoyed the highest per capita income growth in the G7 sector. Therefore, I do not think that it has been an entirely wasted period. The noble Lord also said that short selling nearly brought Barclays to its knees. If he has information to suggest that that is the case, I think he should share it with the FSA. Certainly, on the basis of the published data, there has been almost no short selling or short selling positions in the shares of UK banks. The noble Lord will, perhaps, be aware that there is now a daily report from the FSA on short-selling positions, so I respectfully suggest that to be a slight overstatement. I have given way to the noble Lord, Lord Ryder of Wensum, on numerous occasions. I will now give way to him happily, because the thrust of his comment was the need to reduce government expenditure. If that is the case, where would his party reduce it? Would it reduce it on nurses, or on teachers, or on the police, or on the military? I refer particularly to public sector pensions. The noble Lord said that the issue of public sector pensions needed to be addressed, so it would be helpful if the House were informed how he would address it.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
707 c238 
Session
2008-09
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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