The Economy and Work
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Geraint Davies(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend accept that in the 10 years of the Labour Government to 2008—pre-crash—the economy grew by 40% and that, after the banking crash, we left debt at 55% of the economy in 2010, a figure that is now 83%? Does that not show a failure to grow the economy effectively or to manage productivity?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. May I just say to the hon. Gentleman that he has already tested the patience of the House and should not continue to do so? I care about colleagues on both sides of this House and will make sure that everybody gets in, so—unfortunately—interventions must be very short. The list of speakers is very long, and I do not want any Members to miss out.
Steel Industry
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Geraint Davies
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Five years ago, I asked the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s Question Time whether he understood that the Chancellor—he is just taking his seat—
“unilaterally setting the minimum price for carbon in Britain will drive out inward investors such as Tata Steel”
in Swansea Bay. He responded:
“I will of course listen to the hon. Gentleman, but I think that Ratan Tata knows a bit more about his business than he does.”—[Official Report, 30 March 2011; Vol. 526, c. 338.]
Having failed Tata, will the Secretary of State now promise, first, fully to fund the pension fund, indexed to RPI, so that we do not short-change pensioners or cause contagion in the pension industry; and, secondly, to ensure a 25% Government share for the long run so that investors, whether Tata or others, have confidence investing in the future—
Childhood Obesity Strategy
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Geraint Davies(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. It is meant to be a 15-minute opening speech. Mr Davies will want to speak and he will not want me to take any minutes off him, so I am sure this will be a very quick intervention.
Geraint Davies
The debate is often between reformulation and tax. I agree with the tax on fizzy drinks, but if we had a tax on overall sugar input—for the sake of argument, let us suppose that sugar makes up half a Hobnob and the tax is at 10%—that would give an incentive to the manufacturers to reformulate without the price going up and we could get the sugar content down.
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
Debate between Lindsay Hoyle and Geraint Davies(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We need short interventions because there is a lot of interest in this debate. The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) is 10 to 15 minutes into his opening speech, and I would not like him to give it all away through interventions.
Geraint Davies
I will resist responding to the comment about barking.
On the ISDS, we know that big companies use the powers available to them to sue democratically elected Governments. For example, the Lone Pine fracking company is suing the Canadian Government for hundreds of millions of dollars because Quebec brought out a moratorium on fracking. In a well-known case, Philip Morris is suing Uruguay and Australia over tobacco packaging. The Dutch insurance company, Achmea, is suing the Slovakians for trying to reverse health privatisation. If those powers are available, corporations will use them to maximise profit. Why should they not? That is what they are there to do. I am not saying that they are immoral, because that is what they do and that is what we expect. Our job is to regulate to ensure that the public interest is put first.
There is also an issue of sovereignty. The comprehensive economic and trade agreement will last for 20 years; some people are worried about the EU, but future Governments would be bound by these rules for 20 years. I think that is wrong, and a lot of Conservative Members have raised that point with me.