My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his very robust reply. The main attack from the opposition spokesman last Wednesday was to criticise the Secretary of State because the figures she quoted for exports—£862 billion—were not adjusted to inflation. That is, they were not volume figures but value figures. I put it to my noble friend that that point is a completely false one. It is entirely appropriate to quote value figures rather than volume figures for an economy that is overwhelmingly services, because it is very difficult to measure services and services exports in terms of volume.

Secondly, it is appropriate to measure exports in terms of value because that is what matters to the person who is employed and getting paid. They get paid in pounds, shillings and pence, so measuring them in value terms is perfectly legitimate. Thirdly, everybody laughs as though it were a superficial matter, but this has been disputed. The opposition spokesman was quoting Mr Conway, whose figures have been attacked publicly in the press and by many other commentators. In any case, is his argument very profound, given that the Secretary of State gave figures for exports by volume as well? She gave both—so I do not see how she can be accused of being misleading in any way.

Does my noble friend agree that it is profoundly depressing that, near to an election, hoping to form the next Government and believing that they will, all they can do is talk the economy down? They are determined that everything should be bad news. This is not the proper basis on which a party serious about being in government should be talking about our economy.

I have one question for my noble friend about the motor vehicle industry. I very much applauded the decision to delay the date for battery vehicles being compulsory, but could the Government go further and accord with the request by Stellantis that they should not fine companies that produce good petrol cars before people are ready to buy electric cars? As he will know, there is a lot of sensitivity in the motor industry about this position and quite a lot of motor companies have changed their view, so I would be very grateful if he could comment on that.