Oral Answers to Questions

Amanda Solloway Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

We did commit to that hospital project, and provided that it continues to represent value for money, which I am pretty clear that it does, we will go on providing that support. What we have done is to commit to the Simon Stevens plan for the national health service—an additional £8 billion of NHS spending —which we can only do if we have our public finances in better order and we are growing our economy, which is precisely what we are doing.

[Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)]

Q12. Since my right hon. Friend became Chancellor, unemployment in Derby has fallen by 64%, and our city recently topped a list of 138 cities, towns and counties as the fastest-growing economy in the UK. This will come as no surprise to the Chancellor, who recently visited my constituency and spoke about the midlands being Britain’s engine for growth. Does he agree that we should do even more to support small business across the midlands to create more jobs and better skills, and boost our economy even further?

[Mr Osborne]

I very much enjoyed visiting the engineering firm Garrandale in my hon. Friend’s constituency a couple of weeks ago. It is an outstanding example of a successful medium-sized business growing in the east midlands and exporting around the world, and we want to see more of that in our country. That is why we have a policy that delivers economic security for our nation in uncertain times, more jobs, more infrastructure, and more support for small businesses—all so that we can back the working people of this country.