Autumn Statement

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend has been a powerful advocate for a more competitive business tax system in this country, and we have reduced again the headline rate of corporation tax. That makes it even more of an advantage for companies to headquarter and pay their taxes here, and it is part of what we are doing to win the global race. I congratulate him on the advice and support he gives in this area.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

It is good to hear a UK Chancellor say that the private finance initiative is discredited—10 to 15 years after the Scottish National party did so. It is good, too, to hear of his belated conversion to some capital expenditure for shovel-ready projects—we wasted a couple of years by not listening to the SNP. We have had lost years of ever-growing debt paying for failure rather than growth, and that is projected to last until 2018. I wonder whether the Chancellor will introduce some competition to his job and perhaps return economic powers to Scotland, so that the Scottish Government can show him how it is done and get us out of the mess a little quicker.

[Mr Osborne]

The steps we have taken today, for example, to provide additional capital spending in Scotland, show the strengths of Scotland’s being part of a United Kingdom that is able to borrow money on world markets at exceptionally low rates. The SNP has still not answered the most basic questions about currency, about monetary policy management, and about the cost of debt and the like. Until the SNP can answer those fundamental questions about economic management, I do not think anyone is going to trust it with taking over control of that entire economic management through independence.