Lord Livermore (Lab)

My noble friend is obviously right to draw attention to the previous Government’s disastrous economic policies. He knows that, as I have said, the Government do not comment on specific financial market moves, but he will also know that current conditions in gilt markets are completely different from those experienced at the time of the Liz Truss mini-Budget. Then, severe volatility in gilt yields caused instability in the pension fund sector and dysfunction in gilt markets. This led the Bank of England to have to intervene on financial stability grounds to restore market functioning. Recently, gilt yields have risen in line with global peers, mainly driven by global factors, and these market moves have been orderly. As my noble friend draws attention to, when Liz Truss crashed the economy, long-dated bonds were most significantly impacted due to market dysfunction caused by unfunded tax cuts, unrealistic spending plans and the undermining of institutions that are crucial to economic stability, namely the Treasury, the OBR and the Bank of England. This pushed up mortgage costs by £300 a month, for which working people are still paying the price.