Andrew Selous
Main Page: Andrew Selous (Conservative - South West Bedfordshire)Department Debates - View all Andrew Selous's debates with the HM Treasury
(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Mr Osborne
That is the first sensible question we have heard from the Labour party all afternoon. I agree with the hon. Lady that we have to make sure that the decisions we take on reducing the size of Government are implemented. Collectively as a Parliament we have to reduce Government spending and we have to get the deficit down. I look forward to her support in the Division Lobby as we take further difficult decisions this year.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
We learned this morning that the UK oil and gas industry is set to invest an extra £100 billion in the industry, with anticipated tax revenues of a further £25 billion to the UK Exchequer. Does that not give us some cause for confidence in and optimism for the public finances as we move forward?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is right that it is very welcome news from the oil and gas industry, and it is partly because we have been able to provide certainty on decommissioning relief, which it has long sought. One of the challenges for the UK economy is the secular decline in the North sea oil field as it reaches its maturity. Although we will get oil out of it for many more years, we have to look to the post-North sea future, and that is one of the big challenges for the SNP.