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Global Economy

I will take away the noble Lord’s question. Forgive me, but I cannot now remember when we are committed to making regular updates, and it may be that we should wait until the next regular update. I will see whether any more can be said, but maybe we should be patient. I understand that he would like a quiet bilateral discussion, but I cannot promise him early information. The important point that he and other noble Lords make is that we have to work very hard to ensure a suitable range of channels for access to both debt and equity finance. Incidentally, on the other point made by the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, I was taken away from some European-related reading yesterday. I had just got to the chapter in Edward Heath’s biography on the first negotiations for our European entry, so I have a few years to go before I get to the latest report from your Lordships’ committee. If I am allowed to go back on holiday, I will get there as quickly as I can. The most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York raised another critically important point, which was about inflation. Clearly, inflation makes an enormous difference to the spending ability of individuals and has a significant effect on the costs for businesses. As we have discussed in this House on many occasions recently, it is critical that the Monetary Policy Committee continues to have free rein and is not constrained by the Government in any way in meeting its mandate. I commend to the most reverend Primate the words of the Governor of the Bank of England in his latest report, issued this week, in which he acknowledges that inflation may go over 5 per cent in the short term but says that he expects inflation to moderate in the medium term and to come down to slightly below the target that the Chancellor has set of 2 per cent. As my noble friend Lord Oakeshott will know, in the context of that discussion the governor made some interesting remarks about the possibility of quantitative easing. No doubt when the MPC’s minutes next come out we will look to see what was discussed at its last meeting, but clearly this is a live topic. My noble friend Lord Flight gave a perceptive analysis of the markets. I do not think that he asked me a question in that, but I agree with a lot of his analysis. The noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, raised questions about the UK and Germany and made reference to BMW. All that I would ask him is why BMW has announced in recent months a further massive investment, of hundreds of millions of pounds, in its car manufacturing in this country. I suggest that that is because the best of our manufacturing is at least as good as and in some cases significantly better than the best of manufacturing in Germany, fine manufacturing economy though it is. We have in this country—Mini exemplifies this absolutely—design skills that are second to none. If the noble Lord would like to fire off at me another Written Question or three, I will be happy to try to answer better next time his points on relative added value, but I do not think that we have anything to be ashamed of—far from it—in a comparison between the best of our industry and the best of German industry.