Amendment of the Law

Baroness Bray of Coln Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Harrington]

The comments that the hon. Lady somewhat generously applied to my erudition can also be applied to hers. To respond to her question on growth forecasts, we cannot select one figure and say that it makes a fundamental difference, because assessments of growth must be made over a period of time. In my experience, the most important factor for growth is the confidence people have in the economy, and that will definitely come about because of the Government’s sensible approach, as opposed to the reckless irresponsibility of their predecessor.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

Is it not the case that in almost every recession that this country has had to fight its way out of, there have been choppy times and there has never been a smooth upward trajectory? It is always the case that some quarters are better than others.

[Richard Harrington]

With the possible exception of the la-la land factor, my hon. Friend is absolutely right.

I want to talk about some specific factors that are important to business people, and therefore important to growth. There is a lot of talk about banks and the availability of capital, and about what the Government should do and what they have not done. Again, I want to comment based on my experiences in the constituency. The bank lending situation is getting better; there is no doubt about that, as the loans are beginning to come through. In Watford alone, under the enterprise finance guarantee loan scheme, 23 companies have already borrowed money amounting to £4 million. That is a comparatively small sample and it reassures me for the future that this scheme, which is to be expanded, does work, and that it does so in a comparatively short period of time.

It is very fortunate for us that interest rates are low, but the decisions made by businesses do not change when fluctuations are minor, such as 1% up or 2% down. Their decisions do change when the situation reaches a ludicrous point; I was once left with a loan on which I was paying 2% over base when the base rate was 15%. Variations such as 1%, 3% or 5% make little difference. Again, what matters is confidence in the economy and confidence that the Chancellor has done the right thing today. So I must encourage what the Government are doing on the fundamentals, because people and businesses will want to borrow money only when there is confidence in the future and confidence that we are doing the right thing.

My next point relates to the availability of skilled staff. Despite the fact that 3.7% of people in Watford—more than 2,000 people—are on jobseeker’s allowance and 700 or 800 young people there are not in education, employment or training, I visit factories and businesses that cannot recruit staff of the right calibre every week. A few weeks ago, I visited Davin Optronics, a manufacturing company that uses skilled labour to make lenses—it deals with complicated stuff. Its fear was that its work force were getting older and younger people did not want to join manufacturing businesses. That is a fundamental issue and we have to change attitudes.