GDP Per Capita

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely correct. That is currently a significant issue. As I understand it, the ONS is reviewing that data, and that review is ongoing.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, per capita GDP is, of course, a proxy for productivity in the longer run, and I am very concerned that productivity has become an increasing problem for the UK economy. What do the Government plan to do about it, in both the public sector and the private sector?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely correct to say that productivity is a long-standing problem in the economy. As I understand it, productivity fell to the lowest in the G7 under the previous Government, so clearly it is important that we have prioritised that. One of the most important things we are doing for productivity is increasing investment in our economy. We have revised the fiscal rules to enable us to increase investment in the economy, and I regret very much that the party opposite opposed those changes to the fiscal rules.