Backing Business to Create Economic Growth
Debate between Gavin Robinson and Ben Coleman(3 weeks, 6 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Gavin Robinson
The agricultural sector does need help, as do many other sectors besides. Just this day, I had a conversation with a lovely young gentleman—a 14-year-old student from Broxbourne in England. He is a secondary school student, and he told me about his school and his classmates. They live in a Conservative constituency, but last year in a mock election, the majority of pupils his age were not interested in this Government; they were putting their store in the Greens. I wonder just how often Members in this Chamber engage with real people and understand their concerns. [Interruption.] Labour Members laugh, but they were not laughing two weeks ago, and I suspect they will not continue laughing.
Earlier in this debate, I raised the issue of defence spending in Northern Ireland. Do Labour Members know that the average spend per head of population is £300, but in Northern Ireland, it has been a fifth of that? I asked whether this Government recognise that Programme Euston, which could see investment in both Scotland and Northern Ireland, could be designated as a defence project. Again, officialdom is reticent. When I served on the Defence Committee with Labour Members for eight years, we fought those campaigns together and secured investment, but now that they are in government, they buy the same official line. There are things we can do to encourage investment, business and economic growth, but I am sorry to say that I do not see them.
We have heard colleagues talk about stability in the economy. I want to see stability in Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was in the Chamber earlier. We are now two months into a financial year with no budget. Where is the clamour? Where is the concern? Where is the effort to ensure that our politics can work and we can stimulate business and growth? That has not been mentioned, and it is not a concern.
Labour’s big idea is the relationship with the EU. It is a big idea that seems to ignore a referendum that took place in 2016—its Members do not want it mentioned. Forget about betraying the people of this country and a referendum that decided our fate 10 years ago; the bigger concern among Labour Members is betraying the aspirations of their candidates, with one candidate letting slip their view so that the king of the north is left with no clothes. And yet, on a closer relationship with the European Union, what do we hear for Northern Ireland? Nothing. All are still content that laws for Northern Ireland, applying in Northern Ireland, are set in Brussels; for two years, this Labour Government have dishonoured their own position and dishonoured the pledges they made to the people of Northern Ireland to fix it. Talk about a closer relationship with the European Union: in the coming months, customs duties on parcels to customers in Northern Ireland—
