Catherine McKinnell
Main Page: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)Department Debates - View all Catherine McKinnell's debates with the HM Treasury
(11 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend has that assurance. The funding for lending scheme, joint with the Bank of England, is now supporting the small and medium-sized business sector as well as the mortgage market, and is repairing the damage to the financial system caused by the financial crisis. He is also right to say that small businesses are the bedrock of our economic revival, which is why we have cut the small companies tax rate, which before the general election the Labour party wanted to put up. We have also carried on the relief for small businesses from business rates, and in the autumn statement we increased tenfold the annual investment allowance, so that small businesses can invest for the future and create jobs. The Government understand that there needs to be a private sector recovery in order not to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
The Chancellor boasts that all is going well for British business, but terrible figures out this morning show that manufacturing is down by 3% compared with last year’s figure. Business has lost all confidence to invest, so when will he pull his head out of the sand and see that his plan is clearly failing?
Mr Osborne
The manufacturing sector halved as a share of the British economy when Labour was in office and we had the fastest decline in British manufacturing in British history. The steps that we have taken to support manufacturers, to help with investment allowances and to ensure that they have access to fast-growing parts of the world, such as China and India, are all part of rebalancing and rebuilding the British economy. I was in the west midlands a couple of weeks ago, and there are 67,000 new private sector jobs in that region alone; I mention the region because private sector employment fell during the boom years under the previous Labour Government. We must get behind the private sector and we must get behind business: that is exactly what this Government are doing.