Ms Mary Dalton:

To take members through some of the assumptions that underpin our forecasts on the external assumptions slide, looking first to exchange rates, these are purely technical assumptions. What we do is take a ten day moving average, so this is the same presentation we gave to IFAC and these were taken at the end of September. In terms of the difference between the current forecasts and our last set of forecasts from the SPU, we see a slight downward revision in the sterling exchange rate in 2014 but the same for this year. In terms of the US dollar exchange rate, again, we see a slight change from SPU time, with an appreciation of the euro in both 2013 and 2014, but again very marginal.

Looking at Brent crude oil prices, this is a purely technical assumption that we use as we make the assumption that oil prices move in line with future prices. Again, we see a very small difference between our forecast at the time of the SPU in April and our current outlook, so it is €82 and €78 for 2014.

Turning to developments in our key trading partners, we have set out the position for the US, the UK and the euro area, which roughly account for 80% of our exports. The story is broadly similar. We saw that activity in Q2 surprised on the upside. The graph shows that the US is at 0.6%, the UK at 0.7% and the euro area at 0.3%. While this is positive, Q1 was worse than expected so, roughly, for the year as a whole we are where we expected to be in April.

Moving on to the next slide, PMI data is seen as a leading indicator for activity in the economy. Looking at some of our key trading partners, the UK and the euro area, the UK composite PMI - represented by the blue line on the slide - which takes into account activity in the services sector, the manufacturing sector and the construction sector, was 60.4 in-----