Chief Secretary to the Treasury Chris Philp answers on behalf of the chancellor, who is currently in Washington.
“As we know, the world has faced surging energy prices since Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, we’ve seen high inflation across the Western world, and we’ve seen a cycle of increasing interest rates across [many] Western economies as well,” he says.
“Let me reassure the House that the fundamentals of the United Kingdom’s economy remain resilient.
“Unemployment at 3.5% is the lowest it’s been in my lifetime, economic growth last year… was the highest of any G7 country, and just yesterday the IMF forecast that GDP growth this current year in the UK would be 3.6%.
“But I know that many families are worried about the challenges we face, and that is why… we introduced the energy price guarantee.
“And we also introduced a growth plan to get our economy growing.”