- Government must be more ambitious to save the economy
- UK needs a Green Recovery plan to deal with biggest recession in 300 years
- Liberal Democrats welcome Government’s “screeching u-turn” on Huawei
Government must be more ambitious to save the economy
Responding to this morning’s monthly GDP estimate from the ONS, showing that the economy grew by only 1.8% in May – lower than the 5.5% forecast by economists – Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said:
Regrettably this dashes any hope of an early recovery and is bad news for millions of people experiencing real financial hardship. It confirms fears that the Chancellor’s plans just aren’t ambitious enough to rise to the scale of this economic challenge.
The way out of this recession is through a serious Green Recovery Plan that will create millions of jobs, tackle climate change and radically reshape our economy.
Just as crucially, our economy is still threatened by Brexit. If Boris Johnson is serious about rebuilding, he must avert a new crisis by guaranteeing the closest possible trading relationship with the EU.
UK needs a Green Recovery plan to deal with biggest recession in 300 years
Responding to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) Fiscal Sustainability Report finding that “the UK is on track to record the largest decline in annual GDP for 300 years, with output falling by more than 10 per cent in 2020” in all three of its forecast scenarios, Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said:
This confirms that the economic challenge facing Britain is on a frightening scale and unlike anything anyone has seen before.
With hopes for a quick “V-shaped” recovery disappearing fast, it is clear the Chancellor’s plans just aren’t up to this moment in our country’s history.
We need a massive Green Recovery Plan, with a green jobs guarantee. We need to end the unfair government exclusion of specific groups of employees and self-employed from support. And we need to stop inflicting unnecessary damage on our economy with this Government’s extreme Brexit.
Liberal Democrats welcome Government’s “screeching u-turn” on Huawei
Responding to reports that the UK’s mobile providers will be banned from buying new Huawei 5G equipment after 31 December 2020 and they must remove all Huawei 5G equipment from their networks by 2027, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Daisy Cooper said:
Liberal Democrats welcome this screeching u-turn from the Conservative Government. It is the right thing to do on grounds of national security and human rights and for our industrial strategy, but it’s disappointing it took US action to make the Government to do the right thing.
The Government should now invest in developing this kind of technology here in the UK. Ministers must also prioritise maintaining strong partnerships with our European allies and Five Eyes to ensure any security risks are dealt with swiftly.
Brexit must not be an excuse to ignore human rights concerns when making trade deals, signing public contracts and deciding who gets to run critical infrastructure. Liberal Democrats will continue the campaign to stand up for people’s human rights, security and right to privacy, no matter where in the world they live.
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5 Comments
Mark Valladares | Tue 14th July 2020 – 10:30 pm
and replace Dominic Cummings.
…………………………Liberal Democrats welcome this screeching u-turn from the Conservative Government. It is the right thing to do on grounds of national security and human rights and for our industrial strategy, but it’s disappointing it took US action to make the Government to do the right thing………….The Government should now invest in developing this kind of technology here in the UK. Ministers must also prioritise maintaining strong partnerships with our European allies and Five Eyes to ensure any security risks are dealt with swiftly……………………………
Strange that we are so, so concerned about China’ s ‘Huawe’ connection but still allowing them to build nuclear power stations at Hinkley Point and Sizewell C (just down the coast from me) and probably Bradwell ..I’m sure that the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group ( a major Chinese state-owned energy corporation) poses a far greater risk especially as, last month the respected ‘New Civil Engineer’ reported how “China threatened to remove its support of new nuclear power plants in the UK after Boris Johnson approved plans to develop 5G network alternatives to Huawe”..
As for Europe…They are completely divided over the matter with Spain, Ireland, Hungary and others totally committed to Huawe 5G whilst France, Germany and others are using it with reservations…According to the Sunday Times, chancellor Rishi Sunak (the next PM?) was in favour of keeping the status quo but was overuled by Johnson….
Inconsistency or what?
“It is the right thing to do on grounds of national security and human rights and for our industrial strategy”
Only if you have deeply imbibed the US koolaid and thuss forgotten the Edward Snowden disclosures – our digital infrastructure has been totally compromised by US/UK government agencies for some years now. This decision means its business as usual for the spooks; the widespread deployment of Huawei kit represented a threat to their surveillance empire.
The UK governments original decision to limit the extent to which Huawei’s kit could be used was heading in the right direction, just needed to change the emphasis to emcompass non-european designed, developed and manufactured equipment.
I agree with Daisy Cooper but our present reality is that this won’t just harm our economy a little bit but could damage us severely when China retaliates. We are no longer of value to them as part of the EU and our economy is crashing. I wish there was a Plan B.
I would be interested to hear from Daisy Cooper how the use of Huawei infrastructure in the 5G access network is a risk to national security. As I am sure that she was aware before she made her statement, the technical standards for 5G technology implement end-to-end encryption through through the access network that prevents eavesdropping – and the Government had already limited Huawei’s involvement in the UK 5G network to the access network.
I would also be interested to hear from her how quickly she thinks that any UK investment in technology could reach the state of maturity needed to replace Huawei in mobile networks. It took Huawei around 25 years to reach its current position in the telecoms market – and that with a Chinese domestic market for telecoms infrastructure that is larger than Europe and USA combined.
I am very disappointed that the Lib Dems are supporting a decision that is effectively the result of blackmail from the current US President and certain rebelious Tory back benchers. The Government conservatively estimates the cost of this decision as £2 billion – and most of that cost will inevitably fall on UK consumers.
Please do not accociate me with the statement that “Liberal Democrats welcome” this decision, whether or not it is a “screeching u-turn”, even if it is a decision by the present ‘Government’.