International Investment Summit
Debate between Sarah Jones and Kevin Hollinrake(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Sarah Jones
I am always happy to meet and to talk about what more we can do in our next 100 days, and indeed—we hope—our next five to 10 years in government.
Some Conservative Members have questioned whether some of these investments were teed up under the last Government. They know perfectly well that business confidence can rapidly change investment decisions. All the announcements included are of new, firm commitments being made by companies to invest in the UK either when final investment decisions have been taken or when announcements have been accelerated or unlocked because of actions taken and support provided by this Government.
I am sure that Conservative Members will have seen the letter, published in The Times at the start of the week, from five of the world’s biggest banks, joined by private equity firms, insurers and tech giants, saying that it was
“time to invest in Britain”,
and that Britain’s “greater stability” had increased its attractiveness to investment, which was of course a reference to Labour’s decisions when we took office. They concluded:
“We are optimistic about the future of the economy, and believe it is time to invest in Britain.”
The fact that scores of investors attended our summit on Monday, with tens of billions of pounds being firmly committed to new projects, shows that under this Labour Government, business and investors have a great deal of confidence in our growth mission.
Kevin Hollinrake
The Minister is talking about confidence, but if confidence is rising, can she explain why the Institute of Directors has stated that confidence has gone from plus 30 in June to minus 7 today?
Sarah Jones
The shadow Minister knows that we are working very closely with businesses, business organisations and others to ensure that the changes we bring in grow our economy. We have huge confidence from a raft of people. For every quote the hon. Gentleman can find, I can find 10 that say the opposite. He can pick on one if he wants to, but I suggest that £63 billion does not lie. Let us not forget that our summit on Monday was organised in a matter of weeks. The Conservative party had two years between their investment summits, yet we secured double the amount of investment compared with its summit last year.
To respond to a couple of other points, the Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), rightly mentioned business rates. We are looking at that and will deliver on the commitments in our manifesto. She was right to raise skills, which are a huge challenge for us. We see huge opportunities for growth across the entire country but we must ensure that we have the skills landscape, which is why we are setting up Skills England. She also talked about the national wealth fund and its ability to crowd in funding for the green sector and green technologies; it absolutely will do that.
To summarise, across the House we are united in the belief that Britain needs to facilitate growth. Let us face it, we have been severely starved of it. Only through growth can we keep taxes lower for working people, invest in our public services and create secure, well-paid, high-skilled jobs. Of course, this is against a backdrop of the poor economic inheritance left by the Conservative party, who lurched repeatedly from Prime Minister to Prime Minister, gave us seven growth plans in 14 years, made millions of people pay the price of a Trussonomics Budget and saddled the people of Britain with a low-growth, low-productivity, low-investment economy. The steps that this Labour Government have taken in just 100 days show that we are overturning the Conservatives’ legacy of inaction, stagnation and deterioration, and creating a country of stability, innovation and prosperity.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the International Investment Summit.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Sarah Jones and Kevin Hollinrake(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Sarah Jones
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that until recently his party was in government, and inward investment from China grew over four times since 2014, so I will take no lessons from him on these issues. The automotive industry, which I work with closely and meet regularly, has not asked for what he suggested—
Sarah Jones
No, it has not. The hon. Gentleman is chuntering again from a sedentary position. It has not asked for that. This is something we are monitoring. We will work closely with the industry and do the right thing, and if we need to intervene we will intervene. As I said, the UK’s economy and industry differ very much from those of other countries, and 80% of UK auto production is exported. It is not that we have the risk of EVs in the other direction. The hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) needs to recognise the part that his Government played in the development of these matters over many years, and be reassured that we are working closely with our colleagues to make sure we do the right thing.