Rachel Reeves has done a “fantastic job” as Chancellor, Ian Murray has said. The Scottish Secretary also suggested his party was doing so badly in the polls because “the public don’t like honesty”.
Chancellor Reeves has been dealing with a difficult period for the economy, as the value of the pound dropped sharply and the cost of Government borrowing rose to decades-high levels.
On Wednesday Murray backed the Chancellor and praised her for “stabilising the economy”. He welcomed new figures showing UK inflation dipped last month, as financial markets began to calm following a period of volatility.
“The inheritance has been really difficult,” Murray said. “The economic situation has been difficult. It’s really difficult to turn around the low growth, high tax, high inflation economy in a few months.
“We were honest with the public back in July that it would be tough. Maybe the public don’t like honesty after all. But it has been tough.”
Murray added: “I think the Chancellor has done a fantastic job of stabilising the economy. She’s had to make the tough decisions. She couldn’t shirk away, she couldn’t wish them away, as others have tried to do, because they were in front of her.
“The really positive thing from a Scottish perspective is that when the Chancellor got to her feet on October 30 to deliver the Budget, she started with minus £22 billion and then she delivered the biggest budget settlement in Scottish parliamentary history.”
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Murray spoke to reporters at the Scottish Parliament following an appearance at the Economy and Fair Work Committee to discuss the City Region and Growth Deal programme.
The £3 billion scheme, funded by the Scottish and UK governments, delivers planning and infrastructure projects to boost local economies.
The Scottish Secretary – the first UK minister to appear before MSPs since the general election – told the committee his Government had inherited a Scottish “industrial crisis”.
He said: “If you look across the board, whether it be Grangemouth, North Sea oil and gas, Mitsubishi Electric, Alexander Dennis, Harland & Wolff – the number of industrial problems that have arisen over the last six months or so have been considerable in a Scottish context.
“I hope the growth deals play a part in being able to resolve some of those particular issues, but it’s clear we have to deal with both an economic crisis, a crisis in public finances and also an industrial crisis in the Scottish context.”
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