Surplus Target and Corporation Tax

Debate between George Osborne and Nick Smith

Monday 4th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Financial services is our largest private sector employer, and two thirds of its jobs are outside our capital city. It is a vital industry in the many different towns and cities of the United Kingdom. One of our key priorities is ensuring not only that our financial services industry continues to be a real success and that it is able to sell its services into Europe, but that we strengthen our links with other great global financial centres and economies. For example, becoming the offshore trading centre for the renminbi has been one of the real success stories of recent years.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Will the Chancellor support investment in projects such as further upgrading the Heads of the Valleys Road and electrifying the south Wales metro? Improving transport links will help to improve employment in the south Wales valleys and boost demand across the UK.

[Mr Osborne]

I am always happy to consider any good proposals to make further investment in our transport infrastructure. We of course support the electrification of railway lines both into south Wales and through the valleys. The Cardiff city deal has just been signed for the wider Cardiff city region, but if the hon. Gentleman has further proposals, I am happy to look at them.

UK Economy

Debate between George Osborne and Nick Smith

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The short answer to that is: no I do not. I do not think that it is wrong, in a democracy, to ask the people about very big constitutional issues. In all the years that I have been a Member of Parliament—and, indeed, before that—the question of our relationship with the EU has hung over our political system and our body politic. I am surprised to hear a Scottish nationalist raise doubts about the effectiveness of referendums, but there we are.

We have well thought-through contingency plans and they remain in place in case financial conditions should deteriorate. The market should not doubt our resolve. We are absolutely determined that, unlike eight years ago, Britain’s financial system will help our country to deal with any shocks and dampen them, rather than contributing to those shocks or making them worse. As the shadow Chancellor requested earlier, I shall of course keep the House informed. However, we have to accept that some investment and hiring decisions will continue to be paused as firms adjust to the uncertainty caused by the referendum. There is already survey evidence and anecdotal evidence of this. So the second part of our plan—the first part involves financial stability—has to be to resolve that uncertainty as quickly as is practical in a democratic system.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

European Union funds have helped economic development in my constituency. What measures is the Chancellor going to take to ensure that areas such as south Wales continue to receive support for infrastructure and to help to boost jobs in our valleys?

[Mr Osborne]

We are going to face some big questions about providing support to the institutions, regions and sectors that have been receiving European Union assistance, most notably the regional support that has been provided to areas such as south Wales, the ongoing support that the EU provides for research in our universities and the support for our farming community. We in the House of Commons are going to have to address all those issues in the coming months and possibly beyond. However, at the moment we remain a member of the European Union—I shall talk about the procedure for our departure in a moment—and the European funding and grants will continue to be made. We are looking specifically at areas where questions have been asked about long-term uncertainty in relation to particular projects, and I will keep the House updated. This is a challenging question, which we have to answer, and we are looking at it very intensively now. But at the moment nothing has changed and we remain a member of the European Union.

That brings me back to the question of trying to resolve as quickly as is practical the uncertainty about the new relationship we are seeking with the European Union and our European neighbours. We need a bit of realism and we need to offer reassurance. It is apparent that the uncertainty will be fully resolved only when we as a country have negotiated an agreement with our European partners on the relationship we now want to have with them. We know what the broad options are. The Government spelled them out and set out the different relationship models over the past few months in the Treasury and Cabinet Office papers that were produced in advance of the referendum. We could join the European economic area, like Norway; we could forge a new negotiated bilateral agreement with the EU, like Canada; we could adopt the Swiss model; or we could rely on World Trade Organisation rules.

As the Prime Minister set out at this Dispatch Box, the Government have established a new unit at the heart of Government made up of some of the best civil servants, reporting to the Cabinet, that will help us as we make that decision. I stress, however, that Members of Parliament and other organisations can feed in to the work that is taking place, so that we have the fullest possible information on the decision that we will have to take collectively as a Parliament on our new relationship with Europe.

My view is clear that we should move towards an arrangement that provides us with the closest possible economic ties with our European neighbours. Close to half of our exports go to the EU and millions of jobs are supported by our trade with the EU. Leading industries, such as car manufacturing, farming and our services industry, are reliant on that relationship, and we should be moving towards an arrangement under which—if we reach it and can negotiate it—the trade of both goods and services, including financial services, is as free as possible. In the meantime, returning to a point I made earlier, UK firms continue to have exactly the same status as any other EU firm. Business continues in the City and elsewhere, including for euro-denominated trading in our financial markets.

However, I am a realist—we have to be realistic about this—and we must acknowledge that we cannot have all the benefits of the EU without accepting any of the costs and obligations. It will be for this Parliament to decide what the accommodations and compromises should be.

Greece

Debate between George Osborne and Nick Smith

Monday 29th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I can absolutely give that assurance to my hon. Friend and his constituents in North Devon: we are never going to join the euro. Because of all the conditions that come with membership, we do not think it would be in the economic interests of the United Kingdom. We have consistently held that position. I pay tribute to the person I used to work for and who has now left the House, William Hague, who stood out against the consensus in the late 1990s and helped keep Britain out of the euro.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

The Chancellor has said that UK citizens with deposits in Greek banks are not covered by our UK compensation scheme. How many UK citizens are affected by that and how does he plan to help them?

[Mr Osborne]

As I said in my statement, there are four branches of Greek banks in the UK. They have total deposits of about £200 million, which is, of course, a significant sum of money, but it is not that large compared with many other banking deposits, and the number of account holders is relatively low. I have made it very clear today that those account holders are not covered by the UK deposit protection scheme. I should also say that most of those individuals are not British citizens.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Nick Smith

Tuesday 11th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

T10. Eleven jobseekers are chasing every vacancy in Blaenau Gwent. Does the Chancellor think that the Work programme will prove to be good value for money?

[Mr Osborne]

Yes, I do, and the CBI has welcomed it. I hope that the hon. Gentleman welcomes the fact that we have record employment in our country—a record number of women are working—and that youth unemployment has fallen recently as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Nick Smith

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr George Osborne]

I think we can do both; we can invest in local and regional transport networks. If my hon. Friend has specific schemes in Bedfordshire that she wants to bring to my attention or that of the Department for Transport, we will look at them very carefully, but that does not preclude us as country from taking the big infrastructure decisions—as we did with the M25 and as our predecessors did with the railways centuries ago—to invest in a railway system for the future. High-speed rail will connect the north to the south of England.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Today, the Public Accounts Committee exposed very poor management of the Government’s regional growth fund. Can the Chancellor tell us how many extra jobs will be created by the national infrastructure plan which was announced last autumn?

[Mr Osborne]

I can write to the hon. Gentleman providing a specific jobs total for this year, but I can tell him now that the national infrastructure plan is already seeing the development of the trans-Pennine electrification, which we discussed earlier, the creation of 700 jobs in the north-east as we spend £600 million on new inter-city trains, and the huge Crossrail development across London, which, as I have seen, is employing many hundreds if not thousands of people. The plan is not just a plan for this year; it is also a plan for the future, and it shows that making difficult decisions about things such as welfare enables us to spend on things that will help the private sector to create jobs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Nick Smith

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman reminds us that the previous Government bailed out the banks with no conditions attached, and we are having to pick up the mess. We want to help small business lending by using the Government’s balance sheet and the low interest rates we have earned with a credible deficit plan. We intend to increase competition in the high street: we sent Northern Rock back into the private sector with Virgin Money, a decision that was welcomed in the north-east of England, but opposed by the shadow Chancellor. We are taking the steps necessary, but yes, we are dealing with one enormous mess left to us by Labour.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

5. What assessment he has made of the effect on pensioners of the proposed changes to age-related income tax allowances.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Nick Smith

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I am afraid that my hon. Friend will have to wait for the Budget to see what we propose to do across the board, but last week we demonstrated that we are prepared to take decisive and swift action where we find unacceptable tax avoidance—by a bank in that case, which we felt was incompatible with the code of practice that we asked the banks to sign and which they have signed. I hope that he and his constituents take it as a signal of our seriousness about tackling tax avoidance and, indeed, tax evasion.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Much work has been done to secure a private sector-led infrastructure project in Blaenau Gwent. The developers say that it could create sustainable jobs for over 10,000 people. Given that the Chancellor has already announced 100% capital allowances in six English enterprise zones, when will he be able to offer similar assistance to the Welsh enterprise zones?

Eurozone Crisis

Debate between George Osborne and Nick Smith

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Yes, I think that I can agree with my hon. Friend.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Can the Chancellor update us on the situation regarding Cypriot banks, with their many customers in the UK and their tie-in to the Greek economy?

[Mr Osborne]

We keep under close surveillance not only British banks but the branches of Cypriot banks and the subsidiaries of other banks operating here in the UK. So we are closely monitoring the Cypriot banks, as we do with the other eurozone banks in Britain.