Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

T2. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has much good advice given to him, but is he picking up the nightmare scenarios that I am getting from senior business people in the north of England who fear that we are heading for a new global economic meltdown? They believe that that, combined with our crashing out of the European Union, would be a disaster for their businesses and for the country.

[Mr Philip Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman is right to point to storm clouds over the global economy. We tend to focus on Brexit-related issues and the domestic agenda, but I have just come back from the G20 in Osaka, and looking more widely, we can see that global growth is slowing and that global trade growth is slowing even more dramatically. A great deal hinges on finding a solution to the disputes between China and the United States. It is hugely in our interests that that dispute is resolved and that normal trading relations are resumed between the world’s two economic superpowers. As a middle-sized open economy, we are bound to be adversely affected if global trade slows down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I chair Labour’s Back-Bench environment, food and rural affairs committee.

The Chancellor always impresses me. He is thoughtful, and I like him a lot. He is thoughtful on Europe and on the environment, but can I take him back to what my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) said? Is it not about time we had a modern taxation system that encourages sustainable transport? We are killing kids and poisoning pregnant women. We know that air pollution is of the utmost importance. I appeal to the Chancellor’s radical instinct: let us have a new form of sustainable taxation.

[Mr Hammond]

I am bemused by the disappearance of Mr Angry, who I am quite used to dealing with at the Dispatch Box. As I said earlier, we have a good track record on decarbonisation and addressing air quality challenges. We provide substantial support for ultra low emission vehicles, we have a highly differentiated vehicle excise duty and company car tax regime, which encourages the purchase of the cleanest and most efficient vehicles, and we will go on seeking to change behaviour through a carefully constructed tax system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

I knew Chelmsford was going to get in there somewhere.

The additional £7 billion I mentioned earlier is focused on applied research and industry innovation and the commercialisation of the UK’s world-leading science base. Quantum technologies have the potential to be transformative, and the UK is a global leader, so last autumn I committed £315 million for a second phase of the UK’s landmark national quantum technology programme. This investment includes a £70 million industrial strategy challenge fund, which will help leading UK firms such as Teledyne accelerate getting their products to the market.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Chancellor knows very well that Huddersfield in the Leeds city region is a hotspot for new technology and innovation and a tech centre, but many people in Huddersfield and Leeds are demoralised by the future and leaving the European Union. What can the Chancellor do to give them some hope that there is a future for their businesses and universities?

[Mr Hammond]

I am well aware that Huddersfield, like Chelmsford, is a leading centre of industry and technology development. Many of our towns and cities that have traditionally been centres of manufacturing are changing very fast in response to the changing nature of manufacturing industry. What I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that I will be making a spring statement to the House next week in the context of some very important decisions that the House will be making about our exit from the EU, and I will be setting out my vision for Britain’s future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The Government have made a cross-departmental assessment of the medium to long-term effects of different Brexit outcomes, which the Government have published. The Bank of England, because it is better equipped to do so, has made an assessment of the short-term impacts of leaving the EU under different scenarios, which it has published.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

You’re the Chancellor of the Exchequer. You should have made it yourself.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hammond]

The Labour party will have to get its act together, and organise a discussion between its Front Benchers and its Back Benchers.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

You ought to get your act together.

[Mr Hammond]

Well, I know where the deep divisions lie. [Interruption.] We have heard many Opposition Members express concern about a lack of investment and the potential relocation of businesses, but now the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) has popped up on the Front Bench suggesting that we hit business with an additional tax charge. Labour is the party that is proposing to increase corporation tax for businesses, including the smallest in our country. We will remain the party that is encouraging businesses, large and small, by ensuring that ours is an attractive jurisdiction for investment to take place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hammond]

The Department for Transport has complied with all the Treasury’s Green Book procedures in letting the contract in question, and the decision to go ahead will have been taken with the consent of the Department for Transport’s accounting officer.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I may have erroneously misled the House when I said that the Minister said that the Government were creating 75 businesses a minute. It has been pointed out to me that he actually said 75 businesses a second.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Chancellor does not like it when I use what he calls my “synthetic passion”, so, very quietly, may I beg him to take very seriously indeed where we are as a nation? It looks like we are heading for financial meltdown: people are losing their confidence in this country—[Interruption.] People are losing their confidence. My high street retailers—the big people and the small people—have their heads in their hands, and householders see a real likelihood of a 30% drop in their home value. Will he do something to stop this madness?

[Mr Hammond]

There are a couple of points there. First, I should just say to the hon. Gentleman that I was actually congratulating him the other day on his display of synthetic anger, which is one of the best in the House. On the wider point, the high street is facing challenges because of the uptake of online retailing across the UK at a faster rate than in any other large economy. That means that our high streets will have to adapt. The Government cannot save the high street from the need to change. What they can do is support it as it goes through that process of change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I said in my Budget speech, after considering representations to scrap entrepreneur’s relief, I reached the conclusion that, unless we support entrepreneurs, we will not have a dynamic and vibrant economy that can support our first-class public services. Those two things go hand in hand.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is the Chancellor aware that the businesses and entrepreneurs I speak to look back fondly to the time of the global economic collapse—not a Labour recession, but a world economic collapse—when a man called Alistair Darling, who was a real Chancellor, led us through that crisis? [Interruption.] At a time when everyone is totally depressed about Brexit, our businesses and entrepreneurs want a real statesman and a real Chancellor to lead this country.

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman’s synthetic anger, which I have been enjoying for the best part of 20 years, is always a spectacle worth observing. I thank him for another episode. If he really thinks that businesses look back fondly to the financial crisis, he needs to get out a bit more.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

On his way to Chequers, will the Chancellor give a thought to health trusts such as Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust? It still cannot deliver the healthcare that my constituents and people in the rest of west Yorkshire want because of the PFI hanging around their necks. Will he do something about PFIs?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

I am afraid that I have to remind the hon. Gentleman that 86% of all PFI contracts currently in place in the NHS, draining money out of NHS trusts, were put in place by the previous Labour Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The national productivity investment fund is investing in all those areas. We have the biggest rail investment programme since Victorian times and the biggest road building programme since the 1970s, and we are investing in superfast broadband, which is critical to this country’s future. As my hon. Friend will know, in his area we are investing in the A21, and we are working with Network Rail on exploring options for connecting HS1 services to Hastings via Ashford International.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Surely the Chancellor knows that the thing holding back most businesses—small, medium-sized and large—is the lack of good skilled people to work for them. When is he going to give the Secretary of State for Education a good shaking and make him do something about the apprenticeship levy, apprenticeship schemes and the higher education graduate apprenticeship scheme?

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Gentleman is right that skills are a critical factor for business in an economy with such high levels of employment and low levels of unemployment as we have achieved. We are investing in apprenticeships with the new apprenticeship levy, providing funding for more and better apprenticeships; we are investing in T-levels, improving substantially the level of technical training for 16 to 19-year-olds; and we are reviewing the operation of tertiary education funding.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Lord Hammond of Runnymede

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

Yes, British business has made it clear that it wants the earliest possible certainty about the implementation of interim arrangements. It has also made it very clear that it does not want any Marxist mayhem.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—