§ Mr. Alfred MorrisTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister what assessment he has made of the competitiveness of the United Kingdom economy relative to(a) other EU states and (b) the rest of the world. [28342]
The Deputy Prime MinisterThe Government's plans for improving the competitiveness of the United Kingdom were set out in the 1994 and 1995 White Papers on competitiveness. Progress on those plans will be reported in a third Competitiveness White Paper in the summer.
The UK has had the strongest recovery since 1992 of any major EU country. Over the last international cycle, 1982 to 1993, Japan was the only G7 country to outpace the UK in terms of gross domestic product per capita growth. The UK significantly outpaced France, Italy, Canada and the European average.