Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts
Tuesday 24th October 2017

(6 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Mel Stride Portrait Mel Stride
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The hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), asked exactly the same question, and I shall give exactly the same answer. When the Scottish Parliament and Government made that decision, they knew that structuring the police and fire services in the way that they chose would lead to the VAT outcome that they should have expected all along.

Jeremy Lefroy Portrait Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
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What does the Chancellor believe we need to do to improve productivity, which is rightly one of his three priorities?

Lord Hammond of Runnymede Portrait Mr Philip Hammond
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We need to invest in our infrastructure and the skills of our people, we need to ensure that our high growth businesses have access to long-term capital, and address the regional disparity in productivity performance. If we can tackle those four things, we can start to close Britain’s productivity gap and see real wages rising sustainably over many years ahead.