§ The British economy is in its fifth successive year of steady, healthy economic growth, with falling unemployment and low inflation. These are the best circumstances we have faced for a generation and that is the only sensible background to debate in this House. It is a Rolls-Royce recovery and it is built to last.
The International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development confidently expect the United Kingdom to be the fastest growing major European economy again next year. By next year we will have grown faster than either France or Germany for five years in succession for the first time in half a century.
This time—unlike so many previous recoveries that many of us remember—healthy growth has been accompanied by the best inflation performance for nearly 50 years and restrained growth of earnings has been good news for jobs. The British labour market has become our flexible friend. Employment began to rise sooner and unemployment began to fall sooner than in the previous recovery. Growth creates jobs quicker, as long as we retain a flexible labour market.
The OECD has praised us for having one of the least regulated labour markets in the industrialised world. High social overheads, minimum wages and unnecessary legislation do not protect workers—they cost jobs. Unemployment is still rising in France and unemployment is still rising in Germany. It has fallen sharply here, to its lowest level for over five and a half years.
In the bad old days, recoveries were derailed by balance of payments crises. In this recovery, the current account has actually improved, despite the slowdown in our main European markets. In fact we now have a current account broadly in balance, which is our best overall trading performance for nearly 10 years.