Oral Answers to Questions

Lisa Nandy Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the shadow Secretary of State, Lisa Nandy.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to his place. He is the third Secretary of State I have had the pleasure of shadowing in the past 10 months and I wish him well for however long he remains in office. In an hour’s time, it looks like his investment zones will be the only thing left of this bin fire of a Budget. Can he tell us what assessment he has made of the amount of growth they will generate by the end of 2024 and will it be enough to offset the £26 billion he and his friends have just added to people’s mortgages?

[Mr Clarke]

I thank the hon. Lady for her welcome to the Dispatch Box. I am really proud, as someone who represents a classic community that needs to benefit from levelling up, to be in this post. On her point about investment zones, we are clear and, more importantly, local councils are clear that this is a transformational programme and we are evaluating the bids that have come forward so that we can give her an estimate of the numbers that will be unlocked by the bids that have been received.

[Lisa Nandy]

Oh my word, the Secretary of State has not done an assessment, has he? This is literally the only policy that the Government have left and he has not checked whether it will work. He said a moment ago that this is the Treasury’s money. It is not the Treasury’s money that he is using for this experiment; it is our money, and they have not checked whether it will work. First the Budget, and now this—it is really not getting any better. The truth is that the only thing growing under this Government is the size of people’s mortgage payments.

[Mr Clarke]

The hon. Lady is asking me to evaluate the impact of bids that we received only on Friday, so I am afraid that her logic is back to front. We are proposing investment zones because they are needed to drive jobs, growth and opportunity. Councils can recognise that even if, sadly, the Labour Front-Bench team cannot.