Oral Answers to Questions

Emma Reynolds Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The hon. Gentleman seems to forget that the Redcar works first closed under the Labour Government that he supported. It is also the case that during that Government, which he supported from the Government Benches, the number of steel jobs lost in this country was 30,000. We are doing everything we can to preserve the steel jobs that remain. We are working with the steel industry. We have acceded to almost all its requests, and we are looking at the last remaining one, which is changes to business rates—again, something that never happened under a Labour Government. We will report on that at the Budget. We are working to make this the competitive place to do business, and if we adopted the policies of the Opposition, where dividends are not paid to investors and flying pickets are reintroduced, do they really think that a single overseas investor, such as Tata Steel, would be expanding their business in the United Kingdom?

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

5. What assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of leaving the EU on UK GDP.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

The Government are fighting hard to fix aspects of our EU membership that cause so much frustration in the United Kingdom, so that we get a better deal for our country and secure our future. We are confident that the right agreement can be reached.

[Emma Reynolds]

Jaguar Land Rover recently announced that it will double investment in the brand-new engine plant on the outskirts of my constituency, creating hundreds and hundreds of additional jobs on top of the 1,400 already announced. Does the Minister agree that unfettered access to the single market drives this sort of investment and that if we were to walk away or sacrifice that access, those jobs and that investment could well be put at risk?