Autumn Statement

David Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I want to ensure, in the way that I set out, that the national loan guarantee scheme is available to companies with a turnover of less than £50 million. As I mentioned in my statement, the business finance partnership, which has not had as much attention as the national loan guarantee scheme, is a £1 billion fund—it can be more if it succeeds—specifically targeted at mid-cap companies to provide non-bank financing for those companies alongside, for example, pension and insurance funds.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

At a time when inflation is 5% and when the average nurse in this country has had a two-year pay freeze, faces two years of a 1% pay limit, a 3% theft on her pension and frozen or capped increments, does the Chancellor agree that over this Parliament the average nurse’s living standards will fall by 10%, and that, if the plans for regional pay go through, people in the regions might be even worse off?

[Mr Osborne]

First, we have committed to real increases in the health budget, and the official—

[Mr Anderson]

Talk about pay!

[Mr Osborne]

Well, the pay comes out of the health budget, and the official policy of the Labour party is not to increase health spending in real terms. [Interruption.] This is rubbish: that is the stated position of the shadow Health Secretary; that is what he says. On pay, I want to hear from the shadow Chancellor at some point this evening whether he supports a 1% average pay rise in the next few years, because then we will know whether the complaints that the hon. Gentleman has just made have any force.