Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Soames of Fletching and Stephen Hammond

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

10. What plans he has to increase productivity.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

15. What plans he has to increase productivity.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Philip Hammond)]

Productivity, as I have already said, is at the very forefront of the Government’s agenda. That is why we established the national productivity investment fund, a £31 billion package of investment in infrastructure and research and development, and committed to introducing a national retraining scheme, which we are developing in partnership with the CBI and the TUC to ensure that British workers have the skills they need to benefit from technology change. The focus now has to be on moving forward with firm-level initiatives, such as Be the Business led by Charlie Mayfield and Made Smarter led by Juergen Maier, that start to look at the challenges we face at the level of the firm in this country to make sure that we are doing what we need to do not only in infrastructure and skills but in investment in management at the level of the firm.