Autumn Statement

Debate between George Osborne and Mary Macleod

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The Deputy Prime Minister is unhappy because the Conservative party is trying to win his seats off him.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

I thank the Chancellor for announcing the review of the structure of business rates. That has been called for by the Chiswick traders’ group, the Federation of Small Businesses, the British Retail Consortium and others. Will he reassure small businesses in my area that the review will start as soon as possible?

[Mr Osborne]

Yes, the review will start as soon as possible. I urge businesses and business organisations to engage with it. It has to be fiscally responsible, but it is appropriate to look at the structure of the modern economy to see how it has changed and how the business rates regime can reflect that.

EU Budget (Surcharge)

Debate between George Osborne and Mary Macleod

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

We were presented with a bill for £1.7 billion and we are going to pay about £850 million, so in my book that is a cut.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

May I congratulate the Chancellor on the excellent deal that he has achieved in Europe? As a better woman than me once said, there is no such thing as Government money, only taxpayers’ money. Does he agree that the people who benefit from this negotiation are hard-working British taxpayers?

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is right. Of course, this is not the Government’s money: it is the people’s money—taxpayers’ money. People work very hard to earn money and then they pay taxes on it, and it is the policy of the Conservative party to keep taxes as low as possible.

Autumn Statement

Debate between George Osborne and Mary Macleod

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

First, we are putting in additional money for the flood defence programme. Indeed, additional money in the autumn statement has gone into coastal management, too. The hon. Lady makes a point about the economy, but we have not, of course, heard a serious economic argument advanced by the Labour party so far. Let me point out that in the hon. Lady’s constituency, unemployment is down 30% and youth unemployment is down 48%, which are very significant falls for the people she represents.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

With small business Saturday coming up this weekend, I join the director general of the British Retail Consortium, who said that the business rate cap

“will be welcomed enthusiastically by retailers across this country.”

While I will still keep urging the Chancellor to consider full-scale reform of business rates, does he agree that today’s announcement will save thousands of jobs around this country and boost the local economy in communities such as those in Brentford, Isleworth and Chiswick?

[Mr Osborne]

I know my hon. Friend has been assiduous in campaigning on behalf of her constituents for us to help with business rates for people running shops on the high street. I believe that she has raised the issue at the last two Prime Minister’s Questions, showing what a champion she is of her local constituency. She can take part of the credit for the measures we have taken today to help the high street.

Spending Review

Debate between George Osborne and Mary Macleod

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about infrastructure capacity in Whitehall, and we will set out changes to infrastructure delivery tomorrow. The Department of Energy and Climate Change is part of that. Not only is the Energy Secretary on the case, but the new permanent secretary, Stephen Lovegrove, is too, and they are confident that they can deliver this within the budget.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

There is a record number of apprenticeships in my constituency. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the new announcement on apprenticeships means cross-sector and cross-industry support, as well as an increase in the number of girls going into science and engineering?

[Mr Osborne]

It is certainly our intention to increase the number of girls going into science and engineering and, indeed, to increase the number of people doing science and engineering subjects, both as schoolchildren and young adults. Our support for skills will help to deliver that.

Autumn Statement

Debate between George Osborne and Mary Macleod

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I am not sure that that personal attack warrants a proper reply.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend mentioned that 1.2 million jobs had been created in the private sector. Examples include Aker Solutions in Chiswick, in my constituency, which has gone from employing 30 staff to planning to employ 1,300 by 2015. Does he agree that this shows the Government are rebalancing the economy and encouraging inward investment?

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: jobs are being created. Of course the economic situation is tough—it is tough in every western economy at the moment—but we are rebalancing our economy. One of the things I have sought to do in today’s statement—it is not the bit that will attract all the newspaper headlines—is expand our export promotion effort and ensure that UK Trade & Investment is better at encouraging exports and investment and ensuring that British overseas chambers of commerce are better equipped in the emerging economies. All these things are so important, because one of the big strategic mistakes we made as a country over the last 15 years was not to expand our market share—in the way that Germany did, for example—in those emerging economies, which have become so important.

Bank of England

Debate between George Osborne and Mary Macleod

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The one thing that we have learned is that regulation of banks and managing of demand in our economy cannot be separated; they are part of a continuum and that is one of the things that went wrong. Of course the Bank of England takes on heavy responsibilities, and the new Governor will have to manage the Bank in a very effective way to manage those new responsibilities. Mervyn King has already said that there needs to be a chief operating officer in the Bank, and there will be three deputy governors: for macro-prudential, micro-prudential and monetary policy. They too need to shoulder the burden, as indeed they currently do.

One thing that attracted the panel that interviewed Mr Carney, and me when I interviewed him, was his management experience in Canada. He is well regarded for having run a good bank in Canada as a manager, as well as for the international credibility he has earned for his economic and financial policies.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement and wish Mr Carney the very best. Will my right hon. Friend reassure me that women were encouraged to apply for this role? If he is looking for someone superhuman, often it is women who fit that category.

[Mr Osborne]

There were some excellent female candidates but—I will be absolutely candid with my hon. Friend—it was rather disappointing that there were not more female candidates of the highest quality. Both I and my predecessor faced that issue with appointments to the Monetary Policy Committee, and I would like to work constructively with people who have ideas on how we can encourage women in the economics profession to aim for a career in public service, the MPC, or central banking. We must do more to encourage that because, as I said, both I and my predecessor found that we did not have as wide a range of female candidates for the MPC as we would have liked.

Autumn Statement

Debate between George Osborne and Mary Macleod

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I am not sure that I agree with the hon. Gentleman that austerity measures are to blame, but I certainly agree that that is a real problem. Of course one of the consequences of the ongoing eurozone crisis has been an increase in bank funding costs across the European continent. The further disruption to the financial system is having an impact on exports to the eurozone, which is one of the reasons that this crisis is having a chilling effect on the British economy. Later today, I will be going to another meeting of European Finance Ministers in Brussels to try to get a better resolution of the problems.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

In my constituency in the London borough of Hounslow, we have a real and immediate shortage of school places. I therefore welcome the Chancellor’s announcement today of the £600 million investment in school places. Will he confirm that that will mean an extra 40,000 places for school children and will he say when that money will become available?

[Mr Osborne]

We are addressing the problem of basic need, which was ignored by the previous Government. I know in places such as my hon. Friend’s constituency, the problem is acute. Let me write to her about the specific impact on her constituency and how many additional places the investment will create in the surrounding area.

Comprehensive Spending Review

Debate between George Osborne and Mary Macleod

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

First, to put it in context, close to 200,000 jobs have been created in the last three months. Secondly, the Labour party’s plans involved a head-count reduction of more than 400,000. It was accepted by Labour politicians during the election that there would be a head-count reduction and that there would be redundancies. This is what happens when a country loses control of its public finances. If we had been better managed over recent years—if the people doing my job before me had managed to avoid this record budget deficit, which is the largest in the G20—[Interruption.] Opposition Members keep saying that this is all to do with the international situation. They have not yet managed to explain to me why we were the worst affected in that international situation. We have to take some difficult decisions, but it will help if private sector recovery helps to create jobs. The number that the hon. Lady keeps using is a number from an independent body—the Office for Budget Responsibility—that she presumably regards as credible, since she is quoting it, but the OBR also forecast falling unemployment over the period. She cannot really use one forecast from the body and not the other.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

When my right hon. Friend met the IMF and World Bank officials in Washington recently, did they agree with his approach on reform, fairness and growth, which he has presented today, or did they suggest something else, like the Opposition have?

[Mr Osborne]

They said very clearly in their article IV assessment of the British economy that the measures we had taken were essential for fiscal sustainability. They do not always say that kind of thing about economies—last year, they criticised the previous Government’s economic plans. To be honest with my hon. Friend, I did not share all my detailed budget plans with the IMF; I thought I would share them with the House of Commons first.