Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 11:42 am on 19 May 2005.
Did my hon. Friend notice the Secretary of State trying to position the United Kingdom economy by saying that, in some way, we had beaten Germany and that, in terms of the size of the economy, we were ahead of France? He neatly slid past the fact that, in spite of the way in which the French run their economy, French productivity was greater than ours. Would my hon. Friend care to comment on that omission from the Secretary of State's observations?