We’re here to learn more at first hand from you what things are really like on the ground, and to give you our impressions of the state of the UK economy as a whole. I don’t suppose it will come as a great surprise if I tell you that we bring a somewhat mixed message on the overall economy. And it won’t surprise us, either, if you give us the same mixed message about the regional economy. And the reason - at both national and regional level - is clear. Our overall economic performance has not been at all bad over the past decade. But for the past few years, beneath that relatively calm surface there has been a sustained imbalance, between businesses and sectors that are heavily exposed to some very cold winds blowing in from abroad, on the one hand, and the more domestically-oriented businesses and sectors, which have on the whole been doing much better, on the other. To remind you of some facts. Inflation - on our RPIX target measure - has averaged 2.6% over the past 10 years, and has for the past 2 years been mostly modestly below our 2½% target. But that hasn’t been achieved at the expense of consistently high interest rates, and weak growth and employment, as many people feared that it would be.
In fact nominal interest rates have been as low they’ve been for 40 years; the overall economy has grown without interruption quarter by quarter - at an average annual rate of 2¾%, which is comfortably above its long-term trend; the number of people in employment has risen fairly steadily - and is still close to its all-time high, while the rate of claimant count unemployment has fallen from 9.6% to 3.1% - the lowest its been for more than 25 years. And what’s true for the UK economy as a whole is broadly true for every region of the UK, including the North West region. Total output in the North West increased year by year from 1992 to 1999 - the latest number I have - though at a somewhat slower annual average rate than in the UK as a whole, at around 1¾%. The number of people in employment in the region rose by about ¼ million from the end of 1992 to over 3.1 mn in the past two years. And the rate of claimant count unemployment fell from over 10% to 3.5% - still somewhat above the rate for the UK as a whole, but again the lowest rate for over 25 years. But I’m well aware that you don’t have to look far beneath the surface to see that at the sectoral or individual business level things are a lot more uncomfortable than these aggregate figures might suggest. To a degree that’s always going to be true.