Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs McGuire]

rose—

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Binley]

I will gave way to my hon. Friend, if the right hon. Lady will forgive me. Time is limited to only seven minutes per speech, so I ask her indulgence.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Does my hon. Friend also regret the fact that child poverty has increased by 300,000 since 2004-05? Does he welcome the fact that it should be frozen in the next two years?

[Mr Binley]

I welcome the Government’s pledge to ensure that child poverty does not increase in the next two years in these difficult times, but I was dismayed by the previous Government’s record, which left so many young people out of employment, education and training. That was terribly sad.

I regret that the previous Government thought that they had only to create a project and throw money at it to solve a problem. I come from industry, and I can tell Labour Members that in truth, how projects are managed determines their success or otherwise. Perhaps they can take that lesson on board.

I congratulate the Chancellor on his courage in the face of what he had to deal with. I think he produced a fair and balanced Budget, as do many of my electorate in Northampton. To fire a warning shot across the bows of Labour Members, I can tell them that a number of those who told me that this weekend were in fact Labour voters. Labour Members might need to temper their comments in the light of that information.

The success of the Budget is not assured. It depends on achieving the projected growth figures, which means being competitive. How sad that on the World Economic Forum’s global competitiveness index, the UK fell from seventh to 13th in the rankings between 1997 and 2010. Sadly, that is another Labour failure.

As I said, the Chancellor did a great job in trying to be fair and balanced, not only for this generation, but for our children and grandchildren. Had we not taken that action and set out on that course, they would be left with the burden.