Amendment of the Law

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Vince Cable

Thursday 20th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before the Secretary of State answers the intervention, I should say that there are far too many conversations on the Back Benches. The House is getting restless. If the House does not calm down and let the Secretary of State get on with it, he will never come to the end of his speech.

[Vince Cable]

I am trying very hard, Madam Deputy Speaker, to take as many interventions as Members wish to throw at me.

In relation to Dudley and manufacturing, my hon. Friend is right that it is not sensible to lose manufacturing overseas as we will get carbon leakage and lose the production and the jobs. It is very much in our interests to stop that happening and we are doing so. There is a lot of evidence of the reshoring of production, including to the industries in the west midlands to which my hon. Friend refers.

The priority the Chancellor has given to manufacturing, to investment and the savings that lie behind investment, and to exports through the expansion of export credit are absolutely appropriate to getting long-term growth and the productivity that that entails. There is a lot more to be done. We still have serious constraints in terms of skilled labour. There are still problems in opening up business finance. We have to invest much more in science and innovation, although we are doing that. However, the themes that run through yesterday’s Budget of support for investment, for savings and for exports are absolutely right and they will take this country to the right place.

Job Insecurity

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Vince Cable

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I appreciate the hon. Lady’s point of order. Of course it is always wise for Members to moderate their language. I make no ruling on whether the word “nasty” is appropriate, but it is certainly not a bad enough word for me to insist on its withdrawal.

[Vince Cable]

The scheme cannot have the damaging effects that have been described if companies do not take it up. We will wait and see how many of this modest number of inquiries actually lead to schemes being established. If there are large numbers and they do have the damaging effects suggested, I will retract some of the comments I have been making, but I think the problem is likely to be that, far from damaging workers and far from leading to large-scale tax avoidance, it remains a niche scheme chosen by a handful of companies as an experiment, and as such it can do no harm.

Let me conclude by dealing with what I think should have been the meat of the debate: industrial strategy. It is important that we discuss that. It is very important that the shape and sustainability of the recovery be maintained. I would argue that what we have done is something that has not been done for decades. We are trying to get industry around the table, talking to each other, thinking about partnership, thinking about long-term policy. That has not happened for a very long time. Business is very enthusiastic about it. Trade unions are very enthusiastic about it, too. They want to join our various sector groups.

When we do get round to debating this subject properly, I will be interested in hearing how the Opposition want to develop it. Let us take one or two examples. Although we are pressed for cash, we have put £1 billion into the aerospace industry, co-financing the private sector, and we have put £500 million into the car industry. We are doing similar things for agribusiness and other sectors. Is the shadow Secretary of State proposing to enhance that, or change or develop it in any way? We would all be interested to know.

We have rolled out a system of catapults which are attracting a great deal of positive attention from both the research community and business. We have nine of them, and we would obviously like to take this further. If we had the endorsement and support of the Opposition, that would be a great help. I would be interested to know where they want to go with it.

We have introduced radical reforms of training and apprenticeships, as a result of which we are now getting big improvements in quantity and quality. Again, I have never heard any feedback from the Opposition on where they want to go with vocational training.

These are the issues we need to be talking about. This is how we are going properly to sustain the genuine and real recovery we have at the moment. I look forward to having those debates in future, but for tonight I recommend that my colleagues vote against this motion.