Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Hammond of Runnymede and Adam Afriyie

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

Clearly, it cannot go on forever, but households do have some capacity for debt, and consumer borrowing and consumer spending have been an important component of the robustness of the economy over the past few months. What I hope to see is business investment and exports providing a greater share of the growth during 2017.

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

I very much welcome this Government’s healthy commitment to scientific spending over several years, but it seems that our business investment in research is below the OECD average. May I urge the Chancellor to examine measures that will increase private company business expenditure on research?