Mel Stride says it is "really good news" that inflation has fallen to its 2% target. The work and pensions secretary adds the economy is now at a "crucial turning point" and that he is "fearful" the economy would "go back to square one" under Labour. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00So I think this is really good news today.
00:02The Prime Minister clearly set out a key objective
00:05to get inflation down.
00:07It was up over 11% back in the autumn,
00:09now down to a near three-year low.
00:12Bang on target at 2%.
00:14It's going to be important in terms
00:15of taking some of the pressure off people
00:17in terms of cost of living.
00:18Important, of course, for businesses
00:21and economic growth as well.
00:23And whilst these are matters for the Bank of England also,
00:27one might expect this to be good news
00:29in terms of the future direction of interest rates.
00:32So a really good news story today.
00:34In terms of the effect on the polls,
00:37one would hope that we will get some credit for that
00:39because the government has certainly been part
00:40of delivering that achievement.
00:43But what we've really got to do
00:44is to make the case very clear
00:46between a Conservative Party that's turned the economy
00:48around, has got growth going,
00:49has got real wages increasing and can get taxes down,
00:53and a Labour Party that has a massive,
00:55unfunded spending commitment
00:57and is going to be putting taxes up,
00:59but won't tell us which taxes it's going to be increasing.
01:03I think this has been a really tough time
01:05for our country for a number of years, actually.
01:06And you could go back to COVID
01:08when the economy shrank by 10% a night.
01:11And Rishi Sunak, as Chancellor,
01:13then stepped in with furlough that saved millions
01:16and millions of jobs up and down the country
01:18and people's livelihoods.
01:19People were very worried about mass unemployment.
01:22We've stepped in with cost of living support
01:24during the inflation that's been imported
01:26as a result of the European war.
01:29All of that has cost billions of pounds of support.
01:32But I think we are now at a turning point.
01:35We're at a point where the economy
01:36in the first quarter of this year
01:37has grown at the fastest rate,
01:39joint fastest rate in the G7.
01:41We've seen inflation coming down now.
01:43We've had 11 months of real income growth across the economy
01:48and we're cutting taxes.
01:49And I think that is a critical turning point.
01:52And I'm very fearful that if we have Labour,
01:53I'm afraid we're going to go back to square one
01:55with tax rises and choking off the achievements
01:58that we have made.