Downing Street Says » OECD Report

» Monday, June 29, 2009

OECD Report

Put that the latest OECD report had said that national debt would be 90% of GDP by next year, the PMS said that as we understood it, this figure appeared to apply to gross debt rather than net debt. Net debt as a figure was the main indicator and it was a lot lower than 90% for next year even on the OECD s estimates. If people looked at other estimates produced, the IMF had net debt at 66.9% for the UK, compared with 70% for the US, 78% for Germany, 71% for France and 68% overall for the Euro area.

Our net debt was rising, as was the net debt of other major economies because of the impact of the recession. However, it was important to remember that we went into the downturn with lower levels of public sector debt than many other countries, which left us better placed to respond with fiscal policy to the slowdown and contraction in our economy.

Put that David Cameron had said that these proposals came without a price tag, the PMS said that we would be setting out in more detail this afternoon the costings and how we intended to pay for some of the specific announcements that we had made in relation to this spending review period.

Asked if it would be better to put a bill on each department so that people would know how much it would cost, the PMS replied that the question of the time of the spending review was a matter for the Chancellor. He had made clear on numerous occasions that given we did not have a clear picture of economic conditions, this would be the wrong time to set departmental budgets through to 2014.

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OECD Report

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