Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My right hon. right Friend is absolutely right. We are building the higher-wage, lower-tax, lower-welfare economy that our country needs if it is to compete in the future and give real opportunities to working people. The new contract that we offer is this: businesses will pay higher wages and pay lower taxes and people will receive bigger pay cheques, but there will be lower welfare. That, I think, is a contract that the British people support.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Chancellor’s plan will not look very well planned or very long if it does not include some reference to productivity, higher-quality management, and, indeed, manufacturing. What is he going to do about those key issues?

[Mr Osborne]

We entirely acknowledge that we need to improve the productivity of the British economy. That is why, after the Budget, we published the productivity plan, which will introduce, for example, an apprenticeship levy to ensure that young people are given the skills and training that they need, and roads funds that will help to ensure that we have the right infrastructure for our country’s future.

As the hon. Gentleman acknowledged this morning in an interesting tweet, I think it was, the Labour party is going back to the 1980s. Those were his words. Unfortunately, the sensible voices of the old intake—

The Economy

Debate between George Osborne and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 4th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Let me say how fantastic it is to see my hon. Friend back in his place, because he has fought so hard for his constituency in delivering the Mersey Gateway bridge, the rail improvements in his constituency, and, as he mentioned, the major investments in science at Daresbury, including in high-performance computing. Today’s announcement from IBM shows what happens if we get our science and technology policy right as a country—we attract investment from all over the world.

[Mr Sheerman]

Can I ask the Chancellor about—

[Mr Sheerman]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that I try to play fair in these things, but on his question about my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), I think a sense of humility is needed in this Chamber today. The Tory party has just got 30% of the popular vote; the Labour party got 31%. A hell of a lot of people in this country did not vote Conservative and did not vote Labour, and if we are not looking at why we do not enthuse the people, we are not doing our job.

[Mr Osborne]

I could not tell whether the hon. Gentleman agrees with the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford that the Labour party is the anti-worker party—but we will find out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I do not think any one area is the same as any other area. There is a specific model for Greater Manchester, and of course the Greater Manchester councils had worked well together as a combined authority. Clearly Birmingham city council is much larger than Manchester city council alone, so I would like to have a conversation with the hon. Lady, and with Albert Bore and other civic leaders in Birmingham, about whether we can move to a mayoral model, perhaps just in the city. That is a discussion to be had with local people, however.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I must congratulate the Chancellor of the Exchequer on his organisational brilliance by peppering us with all these planted questions on this subject, but I tell him, as the co-chair of the Yorkshire group of MPs, that we are a bit canny in Yorkshire; we are a bit worried about this northern powerhouse. We agree with it and support it, but it is a bit close to the general election. Where has he been for four and a half years, and where is the money coming from? We have not seen any resources for it.

[Mr Osborne]

We have already made investments over the last four years in things such as the northern hub and the electrification of the trans-Pennine railway, which of course will have helped the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. I welcome his support for the northern powerhouse. This agreement with Greater Manchester was struck with Labour leaders of Manchester councils as well as the Conservative leader of Trafford and the Liberal Democrat leader of Stockport. I want to work across party divides with local Labour civic leaders and local Labour MPs to see what we can do for Huddersfield and other towns in the north of England so that they are connected to the northern powerhouse.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend has done some fantastic work with local businesses to increase jobs in Nuneaton and to ensure that small businesses expand. He is absolutely right that the Opposition’s plans for an increase in corporation tax, which they talk about openly, and for a jobs tax, which they talk about secretly, would be a double whammy that would put people out of work in his constituency.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is the Chancellor aware that most people do not mind paying tax if it is fair and transparent and if everyone pays their fair whack? When will he ensure that those people who avoid taxation actually pay it?

The Economy and Living Standards

Debate between George Osborne and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I will make a little progress and then give way.

That speaks to a broader point. The shadow Chancellor is not a naturally retiring type. He likes to get out there and meet people. He likes to go to supermarkets and shake people’s hands. The truth, however, is that he has gone quiet in recent months and we do not see him so much on the television or hear him on the radio. I think that is because he knows—or rather his party leadership knows—that they have lost the macro-economic argument. He is now losing the micro-economic argument within his own party. The Leader of the Opposition does not want to talk anymore about Labour’s spending and borrowing plans, because he knows they are very unpopular. Instead, there is a whole series of populist initiatives on price controls, incomes policies, bans on foreign investment, renationalisation, and wars on business and enterprise. The truth is that the shadow Chancellor actually spent a considerable period of time, in Opposition in the 1990s and then in office, trying to get his party to reject these kinds of things. He knows that they will lead to higher prices, lower incomes, less investment and fewer businesses.

In fact, the shadow Chancellor makes no secret, if we read between the lines of his speech today and his article in the New Statesman, of the fact that he is not in favour of trying to restrict the open economy, and that he values foreign investment coming into the country. The problem is that the message being given out by the leader of the Labour party is the complete opposite of that—it is in a completely different direction. He jumps on every single issue to make the argument, essentially, that we need a more closed economy and that there is a dangerous race to the bottom. The truth is that I think the shadow Chancellor and I agree that it would be a disaster for Britain to head down that route.

The shadow Chancellor has a macro-economic argument, which is that Britain should be borrowing and spending more, and, if necessary, increasing taxes to pay for it, but the Labour leader will not allow him to make that argument anymore, so he has gone completely silent. Normally, he is there right behind the leader of the Labour party, right behind his shoulder blades waiting to support him. Instead, he has learned a trick from his old friend the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown): when the Labour party is doing badly, losing by-elections and the like, stay quiet and disappear. That is what he has attempted to do in the past couple of months. The truth is that the threat that his economic approach represents—higher taxes, and borrowing that would destroy our public finances and push interest rates up—does not go away just because he goes away. That is the plan he would put into practice were he ever to walk through the doors of the Treasury again.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Before the Chancellor moves on, he was giving us a history lesson earlier but could we have some proper history? He was criticising the shadow Chancellor for the period when the Chancellor alleges things went wrong with the banks and lending. He himself, the present Chancellor, was urging less control and less regulation. Let us get that history right. Will the Chancellor address one issue: why is productivity failing to improve?

[Mr Osborne]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that productivity is one of the challenges for the British economy. I have to say that if offered the choice in the early stages of a recovery between productivity improvements and increased job numbers, I would take increased job numbers because of the considerable human damage and the potential serious long-term economic damage that high unemployment can cause. I am enormously proud of the record of the British business community in creating those jobs, and of the people who have got those jobs and are holding them. I agree that we want to make our economy more productive. We do that by having an open economy where we welcome investment, support enterprise and support business. The Labour party’s policy proposals on prices, incomes, new restrictions on foreign investment, higher taxes on business and a higher corporation tax are all the wrong approach and would make our economy less productive.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The fact that the Labour party had nothing to say in response reflects the muddled approach: it did not support the measure, but it did not know what to do with a popular Budget proposal. We are absolutely clear that we reject the patronising view, pursued by the previous Government, that the state knows better than individuals how to spend their money. Trusting people, reducing taxes, supporting savers—that is this Government’s approach.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Chancellor agree that the traditional financial services sector has let down savers and borrowers? Is it not time that he gave more encouragement to the crowdfunding sector, which is flexible and gives a much better deal?

[Mr Osborne]

The hon. Gentleman has asked me about that matter at previous Treasury questions and I know that he takes a keen interest in it. He wrote to thank me for the measure in the Budget to include crowdfunding vehicles in individual savings accounts. That is an important step to support this new sector.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I am a low-tax Conservative as well, and I hope that I am in good company on the Government side of the House. We have made reductions in tax. The small companies tax rate was due to go up to 22% under the Budget plans voted on by the Labour party, but we have reversed that and reduced it to 20%. We are now of course bringing the main headline rate of corporation tax down to 20% as well, and getting rid of the complicated taper. That is all further evidence to support the ambition of reducing marginal tax rates for businesses.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Could the Chancellor and I make a deal that I will start to welcome any measure of improvement in the economy if he stops blaming the whole economic world meltdown on the previous Labour Government?

On small businesses, many people find crowdfunding and crowdsourcing a real way to start businesses and get the finance to do it; women, in particular, are coming through that route. Will he meet an all-party group of MPs to talk about the proposed regulation of crowdfunding so that we do not strangle a rather nice baby at birth?

[Mr Osborne]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman welcomes the better news. Indeed, I think that unemployment in his constituency has fallen by 20%, which is further good news. It is the first time in years that I have heard him try to defend the record of the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown): since he is not here, the hon. Gentleman has to do it for him.

The point that the hon. Gentleman makes about crowdsourcing is a serious one. We are looking at this new market and at what, if anything, the Government should do to support it. It is of course growing without Government support, but we are actively looking at it, and I would very happily consider any positive suggestions he has on what more we can do to support crowdfunding.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 10th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Let me say first that the shadow Chancellor was in effect the deputy Chancellor for 13 years, when the economy became so unbalanced and we experienced the biggest crash in modern history.

My right hon. Friend raised a serious question about the separation of retail and investment banking and about, in effect, Glass–Steagall-like reforms or a Volcker rule in the United Kingdom. We asked John Vickers— whom he mentioned—to look into the issue, along with a serious commission of experienced people, and they concluded that ring-fencing retail banks was a better solution. That is what we are legislating for, and it shows that we are learning from the mistakes of what went so badly wrong when that deputy Chancellor was in charge of the City.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

As the Chancellor knows, a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises were let down by the conventional banking system. Many are finding that crowdfunding is a useful way of enabling them to start up and grow. Will he and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills be very cautious before introducing unnecessary regulation to curb crowdfunding, which is a good thing for most small businesses?

Economic Growth

Debate between George Osborne and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

We are putting in place, right now, new guarantees—the first time that the Treasury has done this—for social housing associations to enable them to build more social homes; in the Budget, we also confirmed support for an additional 30,000 social homes, so we are taking action to help on that front. With our Help to Buy scheme we are also helping those who want to buy their own home in the private market. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that we should do both, which is precisely what we are doing.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

As we learned with great interest, there was much in the Queen’s Speech that will affect employment, skills and manufacturing in our country. This is an important part of our country’s future. Can the Chancellor assure me that there is a unit in the Treasury—or a plan for the Treasury—to carry out an independent evaluation of how skills, jobs and manufacturing would be affected if this country left the European Union?

[Mr Osborne]

I will come on to talk briefly about reform in the European Union, but I am clear that an unreformed European Union is also doing damage to British competitiveness and British jobs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend has described the comments of the right hon. Member for South Shields as a speech. I think we could describe them as an audition.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is being lobbied heavily by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, for a massive increase in infrastructure spending in London. Does he realise that if he really wants to get our economy going, he should be investing in the infrastructure of the towns, cities and regions of our country, particularly Yorkshire and the north-west?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 11th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The first thing I would say is that we reduced the small companies rate—which would have gone up to 22% under the plans put in place by the last Labour Budget—to 20%. We have now introduced a £250,000 annual investment allowance for small and medium-sized businesses for the next two years. The right hon. Gentleman says that the Labour party had been calling for this. It had 13 years to introduce a £250,000 annual investment allowance. There were all those Budgets that the shadow Chancellor wrote and he did not put it in place.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Chancellor will know that the all-party parliamentary groups on Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire and on manufacturing welcome the change in attitude towards the capital allowances. However, businesses in Yorkshire are saying that they are looking for some leadership and some light at the end of the tunnel, and they ended up feeling thoroughly depressed after watching the autumn statement. When is the Chancellor going to show more leadership? Let us see some light at the end of the tunnel.

[Mr Osborne]

I have to say that the reaction to the autumn statement from the business organisations of Britain was very positive. It was warmly welcomed because we are maintaining control of the public finances, which is a prerequisite for stability and recovery, and because we are taking steps to cut the corporation tax rate and increase the annual investment allowances. I still do not know whether Labour supports the cut in corporation tax. Its Front Benchers have been sending out confused messages on that over the past couple of days. Perhaps we will hear from the shadow Chancellor when he gets to his feet.

Bank of England

Debate between George Osborne and Barry Sheerman

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My right hon. Friend has read out an extremely distinguished group of individuals. What he did not say was that, as I understand his position, he would like the banks split entirely in a Glass-Steagall-like separation. Over the past couple of years we have constructed a consensus on ring-fencing. We appointed John Vickers and his very experienced commission to do the job, and they looked explicitly at ring-fencing and came forward with their proposal. That proposal has now been discussed in this Chamber and commands consensus across the system. If we were suddenly to back away from it now and say that we wanted to start all over again with some other approach, that would delay everything. That would not be the right approach, and it would destroy the consensus that exists on ring-fencing.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I do not want to strike a dissonant note, but is it not a little surprising that in practically the leading banking nation on earth we could not find a British candidate for the job? We have chosen a Canadian, who I am sure was a good candidate. Normally, the overlap between the retiring Governor and the new one would be longer. Is that not a worry, even with Dr Bean staying on an extra year?

[Mr Osborne]

As I said, there were excellent British candidates, any of whom would have made a good Governor. In my judgment, though, Mr Carney was a better candidate. He was the only one who combined central banking experience, economics, experience of financial regulation and experience in the private sector. It says something about Britain that we have the self-confidence to go and get the very best in the world to serve as our Bank Governor.

Autumn Statement

Debate between George Osborne and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Absolutely, I happily pay tribute to all the MPs of north Lincolnshire and Humberside who have campaigned for the reduction of the tolls. This was an injustice. The bridge was built many years ago and the debt was paid off, but the tolls were still very high. I am glad that we have been able to help. Along with our enterprise zones in Humberside and our commitment to the renewable energy industry in the area, this will really help the economy.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Chancellor’s statement reminded me of the Budgets not of the last Chancellor of the Exchequer but of the one before that, because it included so much, and almost the kitchen sink. To change the mood in the country, most of which is now deeply in recession—certainly Yorkshire and the Humber are—were we not expecting some imaginative, bold policies today to end youth unemployment?

[Mr Osborne]

I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that a fairly stark difference between me and the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) is that I am trying to make the books add up, whereas he did not. We have all been paying the price for that ever since.

Eurozone Crisis

Debate between George Osborne and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Yes, I am confident about that, which is also something that the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority monitor carefully. The important thing about the test that the European Banking Authority applied was that it not only required banks to hold 9% core tier 1, but marked to market their sovereign debt exposures, which is something that the eurozone resisted for the last year and a half. Of course, the market has priced in some haircuts—to continue the barbershop analogy—of other sovereign debts. That does not mean that I think they will happen; they are what the market thinks will happen. The fact that we have now tested our banks against those marked to market on sovereign debt gives us confidence that the banking system in Britain can withstand whatever is thrown its way in the next couple of months.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Something that I do not often discuss with people in the House is the fact that for some years the previous Prime Minister, Tony Blair, his Chancellor and I chaired the committee on preparations for the euro, on which the present Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills served, so I have some experience in this area. The Governor of the Bank of England said that we were in the middle of the worst crisis in the history of the international economy, but when I listened to today’s statement, the Chancellor seemed to come across as extremely timid about this country’s role in meeting that challenge.

[Mr Osborne]

I will have to thumb through the index of Peter Oborne’s book, “Guilty Men”, to see whether there is a reference to the hon. Gentleman. I will concede that there are a few references to some of my colleagues in that book, but I have a good alibi, which is that I was writing speeches for the Foreign Secretary at the time, making it clear what some of the problems were with the euro, and some of those problems have come to pass.

Independent Banking Commission Report

Debate between George Osborne and Barry Sheerman

Monday 12th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Of course, we all want to see the return of the banks to the private sector. If truth be told, the big fall in recent months in the share prices of these banks and others—American and European—around the world have pushed that timetable back a little further. I do not think that that is a surprise to anyone. Our objective is to get these banks back into private hands, and Northern Rock—the good part of Northern Rock, I should stress—is currently up for sale.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many of my constituents worked for HBOS, and some of them still work for Lloyds TSB. Many of them—and many people throughout the country—would like to know whether the Banking Commission report will do anything to change the values and culture of the banking sector, which to them seems to have been characterised by greed, selfishness and irresponsibility. Is there anything in this report that will lead the sector to have higher standards of moral values and behaviour?

[Mr Osborne]

It will help to see a return of relationship banking, which disappeared over not just the past few years, but the past few decades. It will also make the people running large banks more focused on their retail arms and on delivering a good customer service. The arrival of new faces on the high street will also help to do that, because it will make people up their game. I am not sure that I would describe this as a return to “Captain Mainwaring banking”, as it is sometimes described, because, as I recall from “Dad’s Army”, he was not very good at running anything. What we actually want is good relationship banking where banks understand their customers—

Economic Affairs and Work and Pensions

Debate between George Osborne and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 8th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I want to make a little progress because a lot of Members on both sides of the House want to make their maiden speeches. I will give way in a little while, perhaps, to Members who stood up.

Of course, the economic situation is the backdrop to the Queen’s Speech. Our country is borrowing £156 billion a year. Our national debt has doubled and is set to double again. Those Opposition Members who think that this is some abstract problem should pay heed to the warning noises from the European continent. Countries that cannot live within their means face high interest rates, greater economic shocks and larger debt interest bills.

Let us consider this one fact, raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), which the previous Chancellor refused to publish. The only reason she can deploy that fact in the Chamber is that this Government published it. It is that, on the spending plans that we inherited from the previous Government, British taxpayers are going to pay £70 billion a year in debt interest by the end of this Parliament. That is higher than the education budget, it is higher than the defence budget, and it is far higher than the policing budget. That figure was kept secret from the British people, but we will publish it because people need to know where their money is going.

[Mr Sheerman]

A lot of brickbats will be thrown across the Chamber today. Surely all hon. Members, on both sides of the House, as people who care about the long-term future of our economy, agree that cuts are necessary, but is it sensible to cut widely and deeply before private investment has recovered?

[Mr Osborne]

At least the hon. Gentleman acknowledges—it is the first time, either in this debate or in Treasury questions, that we have heard this from those on the Opposition Benches—that cuts have to come. [Hon. Members: “The shadow Chancellor said that.”] I am sorry, but we have just listened to a speech by the shadow Chancellor in which he explained why we should not be trying to accelerate the reduction in our structural deficit, despite the advice of the Governor of the Bank of England, the European Commission, the OECD, the G20, virtually every international investor in the UK economy and virtually every business organisation that represents businesses in this economy. The hon. Gentleman acknowledges at least that there have to be cuts. The offer that I make to him—he may take this up; I am not sure that his colleagues will—is to engage in a proper conversation in the Chamber over the next three or four months about the decisions that will obviously have an important impact on the way the Government function over many years to come.