Autumn Statement

David Rutley Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

We have been round this loop before. We are putting £10 billion a year more into the national health service by the end of this Parliament. We are delivering exactly what the senior management of the national health service asked for, and we will work with them to ensure that it is effective, because the money has to be spent and delivered effectively. I keep in close contact with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. He is working very closely with NHS management. I know that it is tempting for Opposition Members to paint everything as a crisis or to talk of looming chaos, but that is not the case. We have a programme for investment in the NHS. It is being delivered and we will keep a close eye on the way it is being delivered.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I welcome today’s announcement and the autumn statement. I am particularly pleased to welcome the extra £2 billion for research and development that was announced earlier this week—it is absolutely pivotal. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it will help to underpin our leadership in life sciences, which is a key sector for success in the northern powerhouse?

[Mr Hammond]

I completely agree. To be clear, by the end of the Parliament, an additional £2 billion a year will go into research and development. My hon. Friend is right that life sciences and synthetic biology are an area in which the UK has gained a really significant lead in a disruptive area of technology that will shape the future of our economy and the economy of the world. There are three or four such areas in which we really have to invest now to ensure that we get the critical footprint that will allow us to be leaders in this fourth industrial revolution, just as we were in the first industrial revolution.