The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Livermore) (Lab)

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell, on securing this debate and on his thoughtful, interesting and wide-ranging opening speech. I very much look forward to reading his book, once I receive the free copy that I was promised. I also join the noble Lord in his heartfelt tribute to the late noble Lord, Lord Desai. It has been most enjoyable today to listen to the contributions from so many distinguished noble Lords, and it is a pleasure to respond to this debate. It has been a particular pleasure to hear from noble Lords from the party opposite about how to grow the economy; it is perhaps a pity they did not take their own advice over the past 14 years. We have heard in this debate from members of the previous Government about how to grow the economy and increase prosperity, despite growth in living standards being one of their greatest failures; we have heard from some of the most prominent supporters of Brexit about how to grow the economy, despite their own disastrous Brexit deal permanently reducing GDP by four percentage points, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Eatwell; and we have heard from some of the most enthusiastic acolytes of Liz Truss about how to grow the economy—