Lord Evans of Rainow
Main Page: Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Evans of Rainow's debates with the HM Treasury
(4 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend. Yesterday, the OBR said, as I have just outlined to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that the Government’s planning reforms will increase our economic growth and, most importantly, will put us within touching distance of meeting our 1.5 million homes pledge. The OBR said that we will get to 1.3 million homes purely on the reforms we have introduced in the first nine months of this Government. Clearly, those additional homes are incredibly important. At the same time, we announced a major programme of construction skills works, so that we have the skilled workers necessary to build the homes we need.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
Further to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, regarding American corporations paying tax to the UK, what assessment has the Treasury made of the Republic of Ireland and its ability to attract American corporations? That is due to a combination of things—the corporation tax is half that of the UK’s, and there are lots of other tax incentives that are taken directly out of the UK economy. I appreciate that the Minister may not be able to answer this in full here, but can he write to me if there is an assessment? The Irish economy has been transformed by attracting American inward investment. Perhaps we could learn a thing or two from them.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
It is right to focus on inward investment. That is a very important aspect of our growth strategy. On corporation tax, we have set out clearly that we will cap it for the duration of this Parliament. If there is a competitive threat then we will act. That contrasts with the previous Government, under whom corporation tax rose and fell constantly, which did not give businesses the stability that they need. Inward investors tell us that planning is the number one barrier to bringing money into this country—it gets tied up in planning for years, with horror stories of planning applications lasting 13 years or more. Our planning reforms are vitally important, as they will raise skills to create that skilled workforce. The number one thing inward investors are looking for is stability. I genuinely believe that the Budget last October, in wiping the slate clean and repairing the public finances, provided an incredibly important platform of stability to allow such investment to take place.