Harriett Baldwin welcomes 2.8% economic growth and backs Government’s economic programme. Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con): This time last year, the shadow Chancellor said that the economy would get worse. Can I lob the following question to the Chancellor and ask him how that prediction turned out? Mr Osborne: The economy has grown by 2.8 % over the past four quarters, which is the point. First, when the shadow Chancellor was in office, he predicted that there would be no more boom and bust—we had the biggest boom and the biggest bust—and secondly, he predicted that there would be no recovery unless we borrowed and spent our way into economic risk, which has turned out to be untrue. I do not know why anybody in the Labour party still listens to his predictions at all. | Hansard