International Investment Summit
Debate between Liam Byrne and Kevin Hollinrake(1 week, 2 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
May I welcome the Minister back to this place and to her new position? I assure her that I am very happy to work with her to further the best interests of the United Kingdom.
I very much welcome what happened on Monday. Having 300 investors come to this country is very welcome; this country is clearly open for business. We are keen to help the Government to succeed, because it is in everybody’s interests. I speak not only as a constituency MP, but as a former businessperson.
I was also pleased to hear the Prime Minister talk about cutting red tape and regulation. We would all welcome that, although I have some questions. We know that there is a bottleneck in our economy, particularly in planning and infrastructure, so we will welcome any changes that the Government can successfully make to accelerate the projects that have been held up by problems.
We also welcome the work—for which I understand the Minister is responsible in her other role as Minister for pensions—on the Mansion House compact and the Mansion House reforms, which could liberate £75 billion of capital into our productive economy. That is much needed: only 3% or 4% is invested today in equities, compared with 50% a couple of decades ago, so it is very important that we continue the reforms started by the last Government.
We were pleased to see all the positivity on Monday, despite the gloom and doom that we have heard from Government Members in recent weeks. It is good to hear investors saying that now is the right time to invest in the UK. We can see why. [Laughter.] No, it is not necessarily because there is a Labour Government. It is because inflation is running at below 2%, whereas it was running at 11% only two years ago. In this country we have only 4% unemployment, our economy is growing as fast as any other in the G7 and our deficit stands at 4.4%. That is what we handed over to the Minister’s Government. The deficit was higher than we would have liked, but in 2010, by comparison, it stood at more than 10%.
We constantly hear from Labour Members the refrain that they inherited the worst economic situation in history, but that is simply not the case. I am happy to take an intervention from the Minister, or any other Government Member, on that point. If they can name a single metric that is worse today than in 2010, I will be happy to hear it.
Kevin Hollinrake
The Chair of the Business and Trade Committee is going to give us one.
Liam Byrne
The hon. Gentleman gives way with characteristic generosity. The truth is that the International Monetary Fund forecast growth for this year at about 0.5%, that families were about £1,200 worse off on average at the last election than in 2019, and that since 2010 the national debt has more than doubled, to £2.3 trillion. I suggest that those three metrics represent not a good inheritance, but a bad one.
Kevin Hollinrake
There is no doubt that we have been through a difficult time, given the effect of covid and the cost of living crisis on a services economy, but the right hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that back in 2010 the deficit was more than 10%, whereas today it is only 4%. In real terms, adjusted for inflation, that is a difference of about £160 billion, the equivalent of the health budget. The inheritance left for the present Government is much better than the one we received in 2010.