Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Richard Burden

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 9 December.

[The First Secretary of State and Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)]

The Prime Minister is visiting Poland and Romania, and I have been asked to reply.

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Richard Burden]

The Chancellor will know that, as Christmas draws closer, people who are having difficulty in making ends meet will not experience much good will in the season of good will if they fall into the clutches of loan sharks as they try to buy presents for their families, so why is he choosing now to cut the budget of the Birmingham-based England illegal money-lending team by a third, although it has helped 24,000 loan shark victims to get £63 million of illegal debts written off? Will he have a word with his friend the Business Secretary, who seems to be refusing to answer questions from the Daily Mirror on the subject?

[Mr Osborne]

Of course we take very seriously the issue of illegal loan sharks and, indeed, that of excessive interest charges on payday lending, which is why it was Conservatives who introduced the first ever cap on payday lending. As for the hon. Gentleman’s specific question about funding for illegal money laundering and loan shark teams, we are considering the imposition of a levy on the industry to meet the requirements that he has identified.

Autumn Statement

Debate between George Osborne and Richard Burden

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I am not sure that this is necessarily the answer my hon. Friend wants, but unfortunately the European Union constrains the rural fuel rebates we can give to very remote island areas. That is why we have been able to introduce rebates in some of the Scottish islands and in the Isles of Scilly, but not in more remote parts of rural England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We are pressing the Commission to see whether we can extend the definition of remote rural areas so that remote parts of the south-west, for example, can benefit.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

In the interests of transparency when considering available public finances in the west midlands, is the Chancellor aware of the recent BBC investigation into the fate of £107 billion of assets of the former Advantage West Midlands? I know that he was not a fan of regional development agencies, but does he agree that that money should be available to people in the west midlands and that local taxpayers should not be forced to buy those assets twice? Will he insist on transparency to help west midlands MPs try to get to the bottom of what has gone on?

[Mr Osborne]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says and I am happy to respond in writing on his specific point about Advantage West Midlands. I will get back to him with the details.

Jobs and Growth

Debate between George Osborne and Richard Burden

Thursday 17th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

There have been queues at Heathrow for far too many years, and of course those queues need to be addressed—[Interruption.] There have been queues for years. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need a visa regime that offers support to enterprising individuals—entrepreneurs, people who can bring real skills and value to this country—to come here, and that is precisely what the visa changes we have made will allow. But I have to say that we can have a visa regime that allows in the brightest and the best only if we can command public confidence that we are in control of our borders and that we have a cap on immigration numbers. Remarkably, not only has the Labour party set itself against a cap on benefits, which it will come to regret, but it has opposed the cap on immigration, and that is a huge mistake.

Let me discuss the progress we are making. As the Governor of the Bank of England reminded us, we inherited the largest budget deficit in peacetime but two years into this Government, we have cut the deficit by more than a quarter. In 2010, the state consumed 48% of national income in this country. Today, it consumes 43%. We took office when Britain’s market interest rates were the same as Spain’s. Two years later, our market rates are the lowest in our history and Spain’s are more than 6%. That is the practical benefit our fiscal credibility has brought.

When we came to office, manufacturing had been withering for years, but after two years this country is exporting more cars than it imports for the first time since 1976—the last time a Labour Government bankrupted this country and went begging to the IMF. Today—as Government Members have mentioned, but, strikingly, Opposition Members have not—we hear that when faced with the choice of which plant to invest in General Motors has chosen Ellesmere Port, in the county that I represent, Cheshire, as the site of their future. That is a successful industrial strategy at work, with Ministers, management, employees and employers working together to secure investment.

The chairman of Vauxhall has just said that the Government have put a strategy in place to attract inward investment and support manufacturing, which all helps to make the UK a great place to build cars.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

We all applaud the deal at Vauxhall Ellesmere Port and I am glad that the Chancellor managed to get out—almost through gritted teeth—some acknowledgement of the contribution of the work force and the trade unions in achieving that. Does he speak to motor manufacturers? Does he know that what he has said about the great work they are doing being export-led is linked to the problems? Does he know what is happening to commercial vehicles and the problems the motor industry has in that regard? Finally, is he going to do anything about Lola, one of the most successful performance engineering companies in this country, which went into administration this week?

[Mr Osborne]

British car companies and their supply chain are doing incredibly well exporting their cars around the world as well as selling them at home. Instead of talking down an industry that is so important to the west midlands and to the rest of the country, the hon. Gentleman should be celebrating not just the decision about Ellesmere Port but the expansion of Nissan in Sunderland and the great news we have had about Jaguar Land Rover in Wolverhampton. Those are real success stories and those companies—Nissan, Jaguar Land Rover and Tata—have choices about where to invest all over the world. They could put that money anywhere but they are choosing to invest in the United Kingdom. We should be celebrating that fact today.

Autumn Statement

Debate between George Osborne and Richard Burden

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is right. The OECD was absolutely explicit in saying yesterday that we were right to be dealing with our debts, and if one looks, the forecasts for the UK were tough, but they were worse for many eurozone countries, which I am afraid is just an indication of the difficult world that we are in.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

The Chancellor will be aware of the widespread calls from manufacturing businesses to increase the range and extent of capital allowances. Did I hear him correctly that his proposal to increase them to 100% is restricted to some enterprise zones and is not available to others? If that is the case, how will he ensure that this will lead to an increase in investment, rather than displacement investment? In a place such as the west midlands, which already has some of the poorest areas in the entire country, how would a public sector worker reach any conclusion from today’s announcement other than that he or she is being asked to work harder, for longer and for less, for doing the same job as somebody in the south-west or south-east?

[Mr Osborne]

First, we are today asking the independent pay bodies—which I think everyone in this House supports—to look at more local pay. That is the start of this process. Secondly, we increased capital allowances for short-life assets in the previous Budget. On the enterprise zones and the 100% relief that I have announced, there were specific proposals from the enterprise zones that I mentioned to attract new manufacturing and business into the zones. We are conscious that we want to avoid displacement activities, so we have given those capital allowances not to all enterprise zones, but to the enterprise zones that we think have the most compelling plans to create new businesses, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman would welcome that.