Reassuring

Really, HMG is going to have to find some official who can produce better answers to Written (and Oral) Questions in Parliament, especially in the House of Lords. They obviously rely on the fact that very few people bother to read either the questions or the answers. Well, this blog intends to do something about that.

Lord Pearson of Rannoch asked a reasonably sensible question:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Livingston of Parkhead on 19 November (HL2689), what evidence they have of the United Kingdom enjoying benefits which are derived from enhanced competition and innovation as members of the Single Market which it would not have enjoyed had it not been in that Market.

To which HMG in the shape Lord Livingston or Parkhead replied:

The Single Market encourages competition by removing barriers to trade between EU members. An increase in competition can be expected to reduce prices and increase choice for consumers, encourage firms to innovate, reallocate resources to more productive means, and boost macroeconomic performance. The European Commission have estimated that the competition and innovation impacts of the Internal Market Programme have boosted EU GDP by over 2%.

Well, gosh, a whole 2% across the EU. All the same it did not actually answer the question, which was about the UK. Does HMG not know the difference?