§ Mr. GibbTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the forecast issued on 22 July by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research; and what assessment he has made of the areas in which it diverges from his Department's Economic and Financial Strategy report. [52528]
§ Mrs. Liddell[holding answer 27 July 1998]: The Treasury regularly monitors a wide range of independent forecasts for the UK economy, none of which we would expect to be identical to our own. In this particular case, the National Institute projections for the economy are not very different from those set out in the Budget and Economic and Fiscal Strategy Reports or indeed the independent consensus. The Institute noted that their forecast showed the Government's fiscal objectives being broadly met.