Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Lord Willetts

Thursday 20th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of diversity, and that is why we have liberalised the rules on the size of institutions that can take the name “university”, as a result of which 10 more higher education institutions fulfilled that criterion, seven of which have already received approval from the Privy Council to become universities.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

This has been a sad week for British retail. Comet has closed its doors after 79 years of trading. I am sure that the whole House will want to convey our deepest sympathies to the 6,900 employees who have subsequently lost their jobs at the worst possible time of year. Given that in less than a year the owners appear to have lost the £50 million dowry they received to buy the business and left the taxpayer with a £49.4 million bill, will the Secretary of State commit to publishing the findings of the inquiry he has set up into this affair?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Lord Willetts

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the strength of the cyber-cluster in Malvern. Yesterday evening we held a major conference at the Foreign Office, at which I and colleagues briefed representatives of FTSE 100 companies on the threat to cyber-security, the practical steps that they could take to ensure it and the strength of the British cyber-security industry.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

May I first welcome the Secretary of State’s new team of minders to their positions on the Front Bench? I note that he is so irrepressible that he needs not one but three minders to keep him in check. His new minder of state, the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), told the Financial Times yesterday that he would

“make sure business feels it has a senior champion in the department.”

Does the Secretary of State not feel that he himself has been a sufficient champion of business across Government of late?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Lord Willetts

Thursday 24th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, I will be visiting Norwich research park later today and will be able to announce £250 million of research funding going into life sciences across the country. Alongside the commitment to human health that we have already made, this will be a commitment to research in animal health, plant breeding and the agricultural industries of the future.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

This Government inherited an economy that was growing, with unemployment falling and a recovery settling in. The revised GDP estimate for the first quarter of this year, far from being revised up, as some expected, has just been revised down. With the country in a double-dip recession created by this Government, 50 businesses going under every single day, and over 2.6 million people out of work, this shambolic Government have been squabbling over a report produced by a millionaire Tory donor that suggests that all would be well were it not for people’s rights at work. Why on earth are they going along with this nonsense instead of, for example, implementing the active industrial strategy that we need?

[Mr Willetts]

Let us be clear: this coalition Government also inherited an economy that had been hit by a major financial crisis because of Labour’s failure to regulate financial services, and unsustainable levels of Government borrowing which the head of the International Monetary Fund said earlier this week caused her to shiver when she thought what would have happened if they had not been tackled. We are committed, rightly, to reducing the burden of red tape and regulation on the economy, and alongside that we are constructively investing in and supporting the industries of the future.

[Mr Umunna]

This is a no-growth Government with their head in the sand. They blame businesses, they blame the people who work in them, and now they blame the eurozone, when countries such as Germany and France are not in recession and we are. They said that they would increase lending to small businesses, but there has been a net contraction in lending to small businesses in every single month of this Government. They said that they would support different industries, from defence to renewables, but they have failed to do so. They boasted that their regional growth fund would create more than half a million jobs, but the National Audit Office tells us that it has created less than a tenth of that. We have always known that Tory-led Governments are heartless. Do today’s figures not demonstrate that they are hopeless too?

[Mr Willetts]

That pre-prepared speech had nothing to do with the reality of the industrial strategy being pursued by this coalition, which is delivering big increases in exports to the big markets of the future. Exports to China are up 18%, exports to India are up 29% and exports to Brazil are up 11%. Employment is up, inflation is down and public borrowing is down. [Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chuka Umunna and Lord Willetts

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

The Government recognise the strong energy and offshore renewable sector in East Anglia. It is the intention that the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult will provide a national capability that will be available fully to companies from all the English regions.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

May I congratulate the Secretary of State on his leaked letter to the Prime Minister? I know he had some choice words to say about the Opposition, but the letter describes the Government’s action to promote growth as “frankly rather piecemeal”. I could not have put it better myself. When that was put to the Prime Minister last Wednesday, he said that the Secretary of State was wrong. I think it is grossly unfair that the Prime Minister should have the last word on this, so will the Secretary of State explain why the Prime Minister is mistaken?