Helen Goodman
Main Page: Helen Goodman (Labour - Bishop Auckland)Department Debates - View all Helen Goodman's debates with the HM Treasury
(7 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hammond
I welcome my hon. Friend’s comments as Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee. Of course, the £2 billion a year referred to is just public investment in R and D. Most investment in R and D in this country is done by the private sector. As the Prime Minister said in her speech to the CBI on Monday, we are committed to looking at the R and D tax credit system to make sure that the UK is the most attractive place for an innovative company to do its research, development and innovation.
On immigration, I absolutely recognise the points that my hon. Friend makes. Many companies that choose to locate in the UK depend on being able to bring people with high skills into the UK to work in their businesses. I have said before and I am happy to say again today that, although it is our clear intention to introduce controls on migration into the UK from the European Union, I cannot conceive of any circumstances where we would use those controls to strangle investment in our businesses by not allowing high-skilled, high-paid individuals to be transferred here to work in them.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
The most alarming number in the OBR forecast is the 13% drop in forecast business investment, and the Chancellor said it himself: the big problem is uncertainty. The OBR says rather plaintively:
“we asked the Government for ‘a formal statement of policy as regard its desired trade regime…as a basis for our projections’”
but they left us
“little the wiser.”
The Chancellor had a real opportunity today to tackle this uncertainty, which is the basic problem, by setting out the objectives for the Brexit negotiations to keep us with access to the single market and in the customs union. Why did he not do so?
Mr Hammond
I did not, because to do so would be to give away our negotiating cards in what will be a very complex negotiation. With respect to the hon. Lady, even if I or the Prime Minister set out precisely our objectives, our tactics and our strategy for the negotiations, that will not remove the uncertainty because the outcome will depend on the negotiation itself. As the Prime Minister has said, a negotiation is a process of give and take between the parties to get to a mutually acceptable outcome, and that is what will be embarked upon.