Debates between Jerome Mayhew and David Pinto-Duschinsky during the 2024 Parliament

Business Confidence

Debate between Jerome Mayhew and David Pinto-Duschinsky
Tuesday 15th October 2024

(1 month, 1 week ago)

Westminster Hall
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Jerome Mayhew Portrait Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)
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Thank you, Mrs Harris, for chairing the debate, and well done to my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies) for securing it. What a good debate it has been. It has been a debate of two halves. From this half of the room—the Opposition half—we have heard lots of interventions and lots of thoughts about business confidence, while the other half of the Chamber was entirely empty for the majority of the debate.

There have been some very interesting contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield rightly thanked businesses in all of our constituencies. She focused in particular on the role of family businesses as the thriving local hubs of our communities, as well on as the economic growth that they provide. She correctly identified the importance of animal spirits, which are vital for growing an economy. In the first half of this year, confidence was growing in our business community, but what a disastrous change we have had, with business confidence now falling as a result of tax fears.

David Pinto-Duschinsky Portrait David Pinto-Duschinsky
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Will the hon. Member give way?

Jerome Mayhew Portrait Jerome Mayhew
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No, I am not going to take an intervention. I feel quite strongly that if an hon. Gentleman cannot make it to the start of a debate, wanders in halfway through and then seeks to make an intervention to ask a question—