Anneliese Dodds, Labour's parliamentary candidate for Reading East, today welcomed news that the UK is officially out of recession, but warned against the Tory threat to withdraw government support while the economy is still recovering.

Figures recently released showed that Labour’s economic policy is working. Published by the independent Office of National Statistics, they showed that the UK economy has begun growing again, with GDP growth estimated at 0.1% for the last quarter of 2009, as Alistair Darling forecast. And employment and youth unemployment are falling too.

The Centre for Cities report (see previous ‘news’ on this) said Reading was well-placed to weather the recession. As experts at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have warned, the Tory plans to cut and cut again would throw that recovery into reverse.

Anneliese added: “For the last eighteen months George Osborne nationally and Reading Tories locally have done nothing but rubbish what Labour has done, without coming up with a single proposal of their own.

They have served their country, and their Party, badly and do not deserve to be returned to Parliament when the election comes.”

The Gross Domestic Product figures released by the ONS can be found online here:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/gdp0110.pdf

The IMF’s report on the World Economic Outlook today argued that Governments should maintain their fiscal stimulus while economic recovery remains fragile:

"Due to the still-fragile nature of the recovery, fiscal policies need to remain supportive of economic activity in the near term, and the fiscal stimulus planned for 2010 should be implemented fully.”

"...a key risk is that a premature and incoherent exit from supportive policies undermines global growth"

These employment support measures have been welcomed by the business community:

"With unemployment rising sharply, the extra funding put in place for Jobcentre Plus will be vital in ensuring the recently unemployed do not slip into the ranks of long-term unemployed.”
Richard Lambert, Director-General of the CBI, 22 April 2009

"The short term stuff, helping people into work, we support that. The Chancellor is right that they should not be cutting back now.”
Richard Lambert, Director-General of the CBI, 22 April 2009