Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Stewart Hosie

Wednesday 13th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Hosie]

I do not have the figure for 2006 to date, but if I can get hold of that specific number I will happily provide it to the hon. Lady. The whole point of tackling the attainment gap, health, investment, supporting innovation, encouraging exports, and supporting, promoting and helping the delivery of the living wage, is so that everything that can be done is being done—as it must be. It is all part of a project of lessening inequality to deliver precisely the inclusive growth that avoids the shortfall in economic growth that we have seen from the UK Government.

I was making a point about some of the demands from the IMF, one of which was an enhanced focus on decentralisation. That is vital if we are effectively to use all tools at our disposal to tackle the economic challenges we face. To give one example, research and development tax credits to support innovation are a function of corporation tax. As corporation tax is not devolved to Scotland, one of the most important tools to help support that research is denied to the Scottish Government in their efforts to build on the work already being put in place. Given the challenges we all face, that is illogical.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the role that devolved institutions can play in helping to boost productivity. May I commend to him the work of the Greater Manchester combined authority, which in its new devolved functions has awarded funding to English Fine Cottons so that it can open a £5.8 million new cotton mill in Dukinfield in my constituency—the first cotton mill to open in Greater Manchester, or “Cottonopolis”, for more than 40 years?

[Stewart Hosie]

I welcome that intervention and the new cotton mill—I hope it is a huge success. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point: there is no point in devolving powers and responsibilities, whether to Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, parts of England, or anywhere else, unless the funding and ability and authority to raise the cash go with it. That is the weakness in some of the asymmetric devolution that the Government have put in place. We believe that the Government should look again at their decision to replace £165 million of innovation grants with loans, and that they should deliver real devolution—not least of corporation tax and its associated credits—so that those tools are available to all the devolved Administrations to maximise R and D support.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Stewart Hosie

Monday 15th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Hosie]

We need to get trend growth up and we need to operate within a framework that will see the deficit begin to come down. I do not remember the previous Labour Opposition ever coming up with a cast-iron figure—2.75%, 3%, 3.25%, 4% or 5%—for trend growth. No one would be so silly as to put a figure on it, when it is dependent on so many external criteria.

Our political opponents dismiss the Scottish economy, saying that it is all about oil. They seem to forget that in two of the past four years our deficit was smaller than that of the UK. In the past 34 years, tax revenue per person has been higher than in the UK. Indeed, in the last full year, including our geographic share of the North sea, it was more than £10,000 per head compared with £9,700 in the UK. Even without North sea oil, output per head is almost identical to the UK. We remain the third most prosperous and productive of the 12 so-called regions of the UK, and, including a geographic share of oil and gas, our output per head is higher than the UK average, even today.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s argument. It is clear that amendment 89, which is in his name and the names of his colleagues, would enable the Scottish Parliament, at some stage, to legislate to allow for those powers to be drawn down, either in part or whole. What timescale does he envisage for the Scottish Parliament to move to full fiscal autonomy, rather than, perhaps, partial fiscal autonomy? What does he envisage being the interim arrangements were it to draw down only some of those powers?

[Stewart Hosie]

I would like the Scottish Government to be in a position to draw down the powers as quickly as possible. Obviously, to draw them all down and use them would require transitional arrangements to be in place.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Stewart Hosie

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

The hon. Gentleman has made a superb point about the Morecambe Bay gas field. Is it not crazy economics that that investment will be lost to north-west England, which has some of the most deprived communities in the United Kingdom? We need to nurture the investment in the Morecambe bay gas field, not drive it away and import gas from abroad.

[Stewart Hosie]

I could not agree more. This is not just about Scotland, but about the entire UK continental shelf and the 440,000 people who are employed throughout the UK, including in East Anglia, off the north-west coast and elsewhere.

As I said—this is important—the warnings did not end a day or two after the Budget; they kept on coming. The most comprehensive analysis of the problem is in the 2011 international annual energy survey, which will be launched at the offshore technology conference in Houston, Texas this weekend. It is conducted by Maxwell Drummond, the industry employment specialist, which covers 100 international directors from all energy sectors. It says:

“the Coalition Government’s ‘supplementary charge’ on oil and gas production, projected to add an extra £2 billion to Treasury coffers, significantly and immediately impacted on global perceptions of the already challenging North Sea environment.”

If the international energy markets are warning of significant and immediate impacts, if there is a threat to tens of thousands of jobs, and if there is a threat to tens of billions of pounds of investment, the decision is clearly wrong.