Diana Johnson
Main Page: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham)Department Debates - View all Diana Johnson's debates with the HM Treasury
(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
In my constituency, 85 claimants of jobseeker’s allowance are chasing every vacancy. Would not a reduction in VAT assist those people?
Mr Hanson
My hon. Friend’s region of Yorkshire and Humberside has a 9.2% unemployment rate overall, compared with 5.7% in the south-east of England. For someone who is unemployed, the figure is 100% wherever they are. Nevertheless, there are regions of the United Kingdom where many people are chasing jobs, there is a lack of consumer confidence, traditional manufacturing and the retail industry are being hit by a lack of demand, and growth is not occurring, and the VAT increase has been damaging to all those things.