Below is the text of the comments made by Anneliese Dodds, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 12 June 2020.
These figures are deeply worrying. They come a day after the OECD suggested that the UK’s fall in GDP for this year will be worse than that of every other industrialised country.
As a constructive opposition, Labour has been pushing the Government to take the action that is needed now to prevent an even deeper recession. That means above all getting a grip on test, track and isolate, so that people can safely return to work and consumers can have confidence in entering businesses. It also means changing its one-size-fits-all approach to support packages, which risk additional waves of unemployment.