The Growth Plan

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend’s tenure in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. He was a great Secretary of State who really championed science. I tried to do the same in that post. I look forward to engaging with him on the science agenda going forward.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Is it not clear that the Chancellor’s growth plan only grows one part of the economy: the bankers’ bonuses and the incomes of the richest in our society? If he really wants to cut through the cycle of low pay, poor productivity and low economic growth, should he not be abandoning his ideological commitment to trickle-down economics and finally announce a massive public programme of investment in England and Britain’s regions and nations?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

We do have a massive programme of investment: it is called business and the private sector being able to mobilise capital to act in institutions such as investment zones. That is a really radical plan, and I was delighted to announce it this morning.