Rebecca Long-Bailey MP, Labour’s Shadow Treasury Minister, responding to the ONS trade figures published today, which show the UK’s trade deficit is at its biggest since the first quarter of 2008, said:

“Yet another set of dire figures exposing George Osborne claim of an export led recovery to be utter spin, as today’s figures show the trade deficit for the first three months of 2016 up by over a billion pounds compared to the previous quarter.

"This sadly suggests that our economy now faces the twin threats of the emerging Tory backbenchers demanding Brexit at any price, even economic failure, and a Chancellor who has himself failed in any event to invest in our economy for six long years, ensuring that the recovery is built on sand.

"Meanwhile his do-nothing Business Secretary has let the vital steel industry go almost to the brink.

"It’s time to make a break with Tory failures. We need a government that will deliver investment and  match that to an industrial strategy that can promote the high-wage, high-tech industries of the future.”