Spending Review and Autumn Statement

Debate between George Osborne and Ronnie Campbell

Wednesday 25th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am sure that the decisions taken on the NHS, education and policing will be very welcome in his constituency. They will enable us to deliver on the promises he made to local people. It is very easy for people to get up and say, “We want more money spent on this and more money spent on that,” but I do not think I have yet heard an answer to my challenge to the Labour party to come up with a single public expenditure saving.

[Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)]

Trident.

[Mr Osborne]

There you go—Trident. That is the modern Labour party: it wants to get rid of our nuclear deterrent. Some Labour Members are now shaking their heads. May I make a polite suggestion? Why does not the Labour party sort out its policies and then come to the House of Commons and tell us what they are?

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[Mr Osborne]

The current funding for schools is arbitrary and unfair. Children in different areas but with exactly the same circumstances can receive many thousands of pounds in funding at their schools, depending on where in the country they live. Cambridgeshire is one of the areas that has been underfunded historically. The new national funding formula will help address that unfairness. My hon. Friend has been championing that cause, and my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary will set out how the formula is going to work.

[Mr Ronnie Campbell]

Has the Chancellor got any plans to bring in more privatisation to the health service?

[Mr Osborne]

Our national health service is publicly run, free at the point of use and now well funded under this Conservative Government.

Autumn Statement

Debate between George Osborne and Ronnie Campbell

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is right that the new catapults that we have set out—the formulation centre and the investment in the high-value manufacturing catapult—will help the north of England, particularly around the area that he represents. Support for the chemical industry is important. The changes to energy taxation in the Budget will help the chemical industry. There might be an opportunity to look at specific things that we could do to help the chemical industry further, rather than all energy-intensive industries. I am happy to have that discussion with him and other Members who represent constituencies with chemical manufacturers.

[Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)]

If the Chancellor is right that the UK is the leading world economy, why does he not give health service workers their 1% increase?

[Mr Osborne]

Of course, our pay settlement does give health service workers 1%. For those on progression pay, we are saying that there should be a 1% pay rise in total. We are able to afford a strong national health service, to put the money into the national health service that we have announced over the past few days and to support the NHS’s forward plan about its bright future only because we have a strong economy. In the north-east of England, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we are investing in jobs and roads. I would have hoped that he would welcome the news this week on the A1 Gateshead bypass and the A1 north to Ellingham.

Autumn Statement

Debate between George Osborne and Ronnie Campbell

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Mr Speaker, there are so many good things happening in Morecambe that I am not surprised my hon. Friend wants to bring them to the attention of the House. Under this Government, not only is unemployment down and not only will many businesses be helped by the measures we have announced today on business rates, but, as he said, the construction materials industry is doing well, as construction continues apace. If I come and visit the beautiful Morecambe bay area with him, I will ensure we pop into the brickworks.

[Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)]

Is it not the hard-working people of this country who have not had a wage rise for three years, the poor, the sick and the disabled who have had their benefits cut who are paying for this, while the Chancellor has been looking after his friends in the City—the spivs, the bankers with their big bonuses and those who are fiddling their taxes?

[Mr Osborne]

Presumably, those bankers the hon. Gentleman talks about are people such as Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson.

[Mr Campbell]

Them particularly.

[Mr Osborne]

“Them particularly”, said the hon. Gentleman, in case the Hansard reporters did not hear.

We have discussed what we can do for Blyth Valley and are setting up the enterprise zone in the port of Blyth. The hon. Gentleman could at least have acknowledged that unemployment has fallen by 21% in the last 12 months and youth unemployment by 22%.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Ronnie Campbell

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)]

The core purpose of the Treasury is to ensure the stability and prosperity of the economy. Today I can also announce another step in the fight against tax evasion. This afternoon we will sign a tax information-sharing agreement with the Cayman Islands—the first ever with an overseas territory. As a result, information on UK taxpayers held in the Cayman Islands will automatically be provided to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which will use it to collect the tax that is due.

[Mr Campbell]

Is it still the Chancellor’s intention to withdraw jobseeker’s allowance from all young people under the age of 25?

[Mr Osborne]

That is not part of the Government’s programme. We are seeking to help young people into work through the Work programme and the Youth Contract. The good news is that the youth claimant count has fallen by many tens of thousands. I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman would use this opportunity to get up and point out that unemployment has fallen in his constituency over the last year, and there are—[Interruption.] Unemployment has fallen in his constituency, and every job created is one that he should be celebrating. He should remind his constituents of the enormous damage done to the north-east economy by the previous Labour Government.

Autumn Statement

Debate between George Osborne and Ronnie Campbell

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I am not sure that I can add much to that, except to say that I completely agree with my hon. Friend.

[Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)]

I have heard mention of at least a dozen Tory MPs in marginal seats getting a lot of money, but I have not heard much about the north-east getting money. I hope the Chancellor will not come and give us what he gave us last year, when he said that the port of Blyth was going to get an enterprise zone. We have 14 hectares. We have put a fence around it and made it into an allotment garden.

[Mr Osborne]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his assiduous campaign for an enterprise zone in the port of Blyth. That enterprise zone is going ahead. As a Conservative Chancellor, may I also congratulate him on his campaign, along with many other hon. Members, for the dualling of the A1 all the way to Newcastle? Since I know that Blyth is north of Newcastle, I point out that, as I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), we are looking at further dualling to the Scottish border, but that is for another time.

Autumn Statement

Debate between George Osborne and Ronnie Campbell

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s support. I hope that this measure will help people living in Orpington who commute into London to work and that it will really enable us to help local people at this difficult time with their costs of living.

[Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)]

I welcome the Chancellor’s statement on the port of Blyth, which is something for which I have been fighting for a long time—I asked the Business Secretary about that only last week, so this is good, quick thinking. However, is the Chancellor aware that south-east Northumberland, where Blyth and the estuary are, has the highest unemployment in the north-east and perhaps the country? Will he consider making the estuary and all the land around it into an enterprise zone, bringing the jobs to where the unemployment blackspots are?

[Mr Osborne]

I think I had better capture the moment when I get a compliment from the hon. Gentleman. We have acted quickly on a specific proposal that was made for the port of Blyth. We are going to consult on it and get the detail right. I am happy to consider the proposal that he makes. It has to be affordable, of course, and it has to work in terms of encouraging enterprise and new business, but we are absolutely committed to the north-eastern zone and to the port of Blyth being a successful part of it.

Eurozone

Debate between George Osborne and Ronnie Campbell

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Speaking as a member of the Conservative party, I would make it clear, as the Prime Minister has done, that if a future treaty should arise, as it may well do, we will argue the case for bringing back certain powers to this country. I am sure that we will have a very active debate about what those powers should be—

[Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)]

And throw union rights out of the window?

[Mr Osborne]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman can put in his bid for things he would like to see repatriated. Perhaps there would be some trade union powers, so that a Government led by the union man, the leader of the Labour party, could get their way more easily. But we will have that debate in due course; it is not active at the moment in European circles. I suggest that we focus on the immediate issue at hand, which is resolving the eurozone crisis.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Ronnie Campbell

Tuesday 21st June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)]

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s latest economic forecasts were published in March. The whole purpose of creating the OBR was to have forecasts that were independent of the Chancellor, so for me to give a running forecast would completely undermine the institution. To strengthen its independence, I am today announcing the appointment of Lord Burns and Kate Barker as the new non-executive members of the OBR. They were posts that the Treasury Select Committee recommended that we create. I am also announcing today the new appointment of Michael Cohrs as a non-executive director of the Court of the Bank of England, along with the re-appointment of Sir Roger Carr, Lady Susan Rice and Harrison Young—

[Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)]

They are all Tory.

[Mr Osborne]

Well, the hon. Gentleman will like this bit, then. Recognising that we are all going to have to work a little longer, I am announcing the extension of Brendan Barber’s term by a further year.

Banking

Debate between George Osborne and Ronnie Campbell

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The statistics speak for themselves. Of course, the shadow Chancellor used to be the chief economic adviser and, given that almost everything at the Treasury was signed off by him, he presumably signed off the knighthood for Sir Fred Goodwin. Perhaps in one of our future encounters we will hear the truth about that.

[Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)]

Some £125 billion was put into the banks by the last Labour Government to bail them out in the crisis. Will the Chancellor tell us when the taxpayer will get that money back?

[Mr Osborne]

Unfortunately, if we sold those shares today, we would lose money as a country. Of course we want to return those banks to the private sector. That is clearly an objective of this Government, and I suspect that it will be an important issue in this Chamber during this Parliament. The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point: a huge sum of money was put in to bail out the banks and no conditions were attached. With all the things that I have talked about today and all the things that the shadow Chancellor asked about, such as pay and transparency, when the previous Government had the leverage, they did not use it. Unfortunately, we have to deal with that inheritance.

Financial Assistance (Ireland)

Debate between George Osborne and Ronnie Campbell

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

No, there was not.

[Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)]

Are there not lessons for us in the United Kingdom to learn, given that the Irish cut very deeply not so long ago? Does the Chancellor not think that we should have a credible growth programme along with what the Government have already done? How will the Chancellor solve the problem when he does not know the causes?

[Mr Osborne]

An absolute precondition of growth, as we can see in Ireland, is stability, and there is no stability if people put a question mark over a country’s ability to fund itself. One reason why the international assistance package is being put in place is to take the sovereign out of the debt markets for the next couple of years. Quite frankly, the decisions we took in May, in June and last month were absolutely necessary to restore international confidence in Britain’s ability to deal with its deficit and to restore some sanity to its public finances. I find it slightly bizarre, having now had this argument for about a year with Labour Members, that they continue to pursue the belief that we could stick with a set of fiscal plans that no one regarded as credible.

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[Mr Osborne]

As I have said, it is for the Opposition to speak to their own policy. As I understand it, they are still committed in principle to joining the euro—

[Mr Ronnie Campbell]

No!

[Mr Osborne]

Maybe not on the Benches where the hon. Gentleman sits, but it is those on the Opposition Front Bench that I am talking about.