Autumn Statement

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who has done a brilliant job in bringing to my attention, and that of Parliament, the needs of Norfolk, Norwich and East Anglia. Because of her campaigning, and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), we have the Norwich in 90 and Ipswich in 60 campaigns, and the report. We are committing new trains to speed up those journeys, as well as a massive road investment on the A47, A11, A12 and A14. None of those things happened under a Labour Government, and East Anglia was completely neglected in terms of infrastructure for the future. That is not the case any more and my hon. Friend has put East Anglia on the map.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

When I was a teacher of children with learning difficulties, some of the children did not finish the race but were still given a prize. The Chancellor is different: he has run only half the distance he promised by the next election. Instead of apologising for not getting rid of the deficit as he promised, he wants us to applaud him. He says we are all in it together, but for the people I represent, yes, the claimant count has gone down, but the real value of their income has gone down by £2,000 per household. Last weekend, at Tesco, the warm-hearted people of my constituency had a massive collection for food banks. When will the Chancellor deliver for those people, instead of the millionaires who he claims are all in it together with them?

[Mr Osborne]

I have taken measures to reform stamp duty in a progressive way and introduced a tax, which could have been introduced in any Budget by a Labour Chancellor, to deal with multinational companies that divert their profits overseas. I have ensured that profits cannot be written off against losses incurred during the financial crisis—again, any Labour Chancellor could have done that but they did not. I am determined to ensure that the richest in our society make a contribution and that businesses pay our low taxes. More generally, the result of a pro-business policy is that in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency alone—I think he just dismissed this out of hand—unemployment has fallen by 20% in the last year. I would have thought he would welcome that.