The banking collapse in 2007 and the Great Recession in 2008, the biggest for 100 years, caused massive damage to our economy and to the standard of living of people across the Bolton West constituency. The main story of this five year Parliament has been our recovery as the Conservatives long term economic plan delivers.
Many people now see that the recovering economy is improving their standard of living but we know that there is still much to do:
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The figures for last year’s growth have been revised up from 2.6% to 2.8%
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This is the fastest rate of growth since 2006 and was the fastest in the G7 – Canada’s was 2.5%
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Investment was up by 7.8% which shows the increased confidence that businesses have in our strengthening economy.
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Living standards grew by 1.9% last year and are now 2.2% higher than before labour’s Great Recession.
In the North West, there are now more than 70,000 more businesses than in 2010 and 137,000 more people now have a job. In Bolton West, over 4,500 people have been taken out of paying income tax and over 1,000 are no longer relying on unemployment benefit each week.
With David Cameron and George Osborne having restored business confidence we are now seeing increasing investment, job creation and training in new skills. With people’s standard of living rising, we have to keep going and not let Ed Miliband and Ed Balls wreck our recovery.