Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Bridget Phillipson and Lord Harrington of Watford(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Richard Harrington)
The automotive sector is one of the great success stories of our country, and our sector deal is a good example of how we will continue to support it going forward. We have committed around £1 billion over 10 years up to 2023 through the Advanced Propulsion Centre to research, develop and commercialise the next generation of low-carbon technologies, to keep us at the cutting edge of the automotive industry’s development.
Bridget Phillipson
The UK car industry is under huge pressure, yet far from providing the certainty that the sector needs, we will be debating our trading relationship with the European Union for years to come. Is it not the case that the deal that the Government are putting forward fails to protect tens of thousands of highly-skilled automotive jobs in my region? Not only that, but it is far worse than the deal we have now.
Richard Harrington
I am sure the hon. Lady knows that the deal has been backed by everybody in the automotive sector. I meet regularly with them and they have been outspoken about the perils of defeating the Prime Minister’s deal. I hope that the hon. Lady will think about that when she goes through the voting Lobby.
Finance (No. 2) Bill
Debate between Bridget Phillipson and Lord Harrington of Watford(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Richard Harrington
I spend a lot of time at Jobcentre Plus—if the hon. Lady and her colleagues have their way, I am sure I will be spending a lot more time there after May next year—but I do that for a serious reason, which is to talk to people on jobseeker’s allowance. I have heard the Opposition speak about these matters, and one cannot argue with the Office for National Statistics and statistics such as that. However, I wanted to try to get to the bottom of the issue and—I am genuinely not trying to make a party-political point—that has not been my experience in my constituency.
Richard Harrington
If the hon. Lady will excuse me, I have taken enough of Madam Deputy Speaker’s time.
I conclude by referring again to the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who is not here. He painted a picture of the problem with millionaires getting pay rises and everybody else being increasingly impoverished. Next time he is in my constituency—as I said, he is a regular visitor to Watford—I would very much like to meet him and show him around because real unemployment has halved. Youth unemployment has dropped to pre-recession levels and is falling, and more than 400 new businesses have opened in the past year. I would like him to come with me to Watford high street and meet Alex and Isabella, whom I met last week. They have just opened an independent coffee shop there. Neither of them has any experience in business, but they are operating on the high street, along with other businesses. Those businesses are real, those jobs are real, and with the Budget and the Finance Bill I believe the Government have done everything possible to help the economy so that the experience of Watford high street becomes not the exception but the reality for many people.