Labour

Cable & Osborne have left growth at zero since the spending review leaving the economy vulnerable to problems abroad - Umunna

Chuka Umunna MP, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, commenting on the widening of the UK trade deficit in February 2012, said:

“In their Plan for Growth, Vince Cable and George Osborne said encouraging investment and exports was a benchmark against which the Government should be judged.  But last month the Office for Budget Responsibility revised down their forecasts for business investment by a huge 6.9% in 2012 with downgrades in every subsequent year from 2013 to 2016, and this month we learn Britain’s trade deficit widened on top of an unexpected fall in manufacturing output in February 2012.

“These figures are worrying and underline the difficult and uncertain economic environment in which firms are having to operate. If, as they and OBR forecasts suggest, we see slow growth throughout 2012 this would be deeply disappointing and show the failure of the Government's economic plans.

"By choking off the recovery with tax rises and spending cuts which go too far and too fast, and failing to implement the active industrial strategy that industry has called for, Cable and Osborne have left growth at zero since the spending review leaving the British economy vulnerable to problems abroad.”