"My Lords, as there are no more supplementary questions, the House will now adjourn until a convenient point after 4 pm, for the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park...." Lord Bates - View Speech
"My Lords, the manufacturing purchasing managers’ index stands at 55.1, and has been above 50—indicating an expansion in activity—for 32 consecutive months, supported recently in part by strength in inventory accumulation. Meanwhile, the comparable reading for Germany has fallen into contractionary territory in 2019 at 44.1...." Lord Bates - View Speech
"I am sure that those who forecast a figure of zero for GDP in February and then found out it was 0.2% might be a little cheered up this morning. On other reasons to be cheerful, what about the fact that unemployment, debt and taxes are all falling while exports, …..." Lord Bates - View Speech
"I absolutely agree with the first part of the noble Lord’s question. I am sure it is noted on his Front Bench. We have been clear that we believe the best way forward for manufacturing—in fact, for the whole economy—is to leave the European Union with a deal, and that …..." Lord Bates - View Speech
"I do not dispute that there are headwinds and that uncertainty is bad for business, which is why we want to resolve matters and move forward. However, one of the points about the purchasing managers’ index is that it asks people what their future intentions are, so if people had …..." Lord Bates - View Speech
"Given that it is hard enough to answer for the UK Government in your Lordships’ House, I will not attempt to answer for other Governments. However, I believe that the resilience we are seeing in the British economy is a tribute to a number of factors: the fact that the …..." Lord Bates - View Speech
"It is absolutely true that there are challenges in the services sector, which is crucially important to us. That is why a lot of the uncertainty that I referred to earlier, in my answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, needs to be resolved. We believe that there is sufficient …..." Lord Bates - View Speech
"I agree that the uncertainty needs to end. However, the message from the numbers, which my noble friend Lord Borwick began by mentioning, is that whatever the difficulties we have as politicians in resolving the matters before us, men and women out there who are setting up and running businesses, …..." Lord Bates - View Speech
"The people voted to leave in 2016. Since then, we have seen almost 1 million jobs added to the economy. We saw £48 billion of foreign direct investment into the UK last year with investors knowing of our intention to leave. We have a globally competitive economy, which will continue …..." Lord Bates - View Speech
"That this House approves, for the purposes of section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993, the Government’s assessment of the medium term economic and fiscal position as set out in the latest Budget document and the Office for Budget Responsibility’s most recent Economic and Fiscal Outlook and Fiscal …..." Lord Bates - View Speech