Financial Services Bill

Debate between Geraint Davies and John Hemming

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies]

But as I have just said, if that is the case why do we need the OBR? We could go on the internet, like the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) did, and then say, “I’ve got a figure from a reliable mate in the City.” This is completely absurd—

[John Hemming]

rose—

[Geraint Davies]

Here comes another absurd intervention.

[John Hemming]

Just for clarification, I looked up the BSA figure for the market share of mutuals, and it indicated that the market share was increasing. The BSA is not a friend of mine in the City, and the information is already being measured and reported on.

[Geraint Davies]

My point is that second-hand information is available in all sorts of marketplaces, but the Government make a great virtue of the OBR, and of other reliable and robust statistical sources, in order to measure the effectiveness of the outcomes of their policies.

[John Hemming]

rose—

[Geraint Davies]

I hope that this intervention is not just another repetition of the same thing.

[John Hemming]

It is difficult to see where the OBR comes into all this; it is not being handed the task of measuring things.

Opportunities for the Next Generation

Debate between Geraint Davies and John Hemming

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), but in general, we have heard a rag-bag of rubbish from Government Members today. Let us think about the big picture: accelerating globalisation; climate change; the ageing of western populations; and the emergence of developing markets, particularly in China and India, that are driving up energy prices, which makes green technologies economical.

In Europe, there is a sovereign debt crisis in the aftermath of a financial crisis, but the UK, after 13 years of Labour Government, is in a pretty strong position. As I pointed out earlier, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain are in a much worse position than Britain. Why? It is because Labour had created 2 million extra jobs since 1997. Those people are working, paying tax, and making their way.

Of course, we have a deficit, two thirds of which, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies acknowledged, was created by the bankers. The other third was due to the fact that, in the recession, we invested more than we earned, but there is no apology for that. Yesterday, the Government attempted to say, “Oh well, we’ll sort out the banking crisis,” but their remedy would take eight years. They also acknowledged that they would bail out Lehman Brothers and others, so that was no real solution.

The big choice is in deciding what the balance should be between growth and cuts to get the deficit down, and there is also the issue of timing. We have not heard much about what a growth strategy would look like. We have seen what a cuts strategy looks like; we are living that awful nightmare. What we need in a growth strategy is a strategy for indigenous growth, in which we invest in education, skills, apprenticeships, economic clusters, and an entrepreneurial culture; we have heard some reference to that. We need to build up trade links, which have been savaged by the Government’s disinvestment in regional development agencies, which means that UK Trade & Investment cannot market the UK abroad effectively and get companies to invest in Britain. We need to invest in infrastructure and, in particular, in housing, as is mentioned in the motion, to crank up the economy once again.

We need inward investment, resulting from the effective marketing of Britain—something that has been cut to the bone. We need to create economic conditions of stability and certainty, not just in Britain but across Europe and globally, to give business the confidence to invest. We need to spot the obvious fact that the emerging opportunities are in future markets, not least in China and India. What is the verdict on the Government’s efforts so far? Pretty poor, frankly. Small business is starved of cash from banks. The news of massive cuts in public services means that consumers are saving instead of consuming, so companies are not investing in new jobs. In construction, things are almost as dead as a door-nail.

On education and skills, Government Front Benchers deny that it is possible to send students to university for £3,000, yet in Wales that is precisely what is happening. A student from Wales will leave university with a debt of £10,000, but in England, it will be £30,000. If there are three children in a family, that is £100,000 in England, versus £30,000 in Wales.

[John Hemming]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that Wales gets a lot more money per capita through the Barnett formula?