Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he is taking to increase productivity to levels recorded in 2008.

Output per worker was approximately 2.2% higher in 2015 compared to 2008, according to the Office for National Statistics. On an output per hour basis, productivity was 1.7% higher in 2015 compared to 2008.

Increasing productivity growth remains one of the key economic challenges for this Parliament. The government’s ‘Fixing the Foundations’ productivity plan sets out the ambitious vision and pro-productivity agenda that the government is working on to meet the productivity challenge that most advanced economies face.

The productivity plan can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fixing-the-foundations-creating-a-more-prosperous-nation

As the plan notes, every part of government is contributing to this ambition; and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is working across Whitehall to ensure that the reforms set out in the plan are delivered with urgency and pace.