Policy for Growth

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

In the spirit of general agreement with some of the other speakers, I wish to say, first, that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) was right to point out that there are more important things than just thinking about profit and so forth. We do think about the quality of life, and that is really important. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Workington—

[Mr Redwood]

Wokingham. Workington would be quite a win.

[Neil Carmichael]

All right, calm down. I thank my right hon. Friend for securing this excellent debate, because he is right about quantitative easing. Three hours ago he rightly reminded us that that could stimulate inflation. It is a form of inverted monetarism, and we should be mindful of that. He is also right about funding for smaller businesses. Crucially, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) said, we have to think about more than just overdrafts; it is a question of putting equity into smaller businesses as well. We need to construct a taxation regime that allows that to happen, and the Departments should be working really hard on that.

I have three or four points to canter through briefly. First, Airbus is a very important business in my region, and has a huge number of supply companies in my constituency. It is also important because it is an international firm, so I want to make it clear right now that we must ensure that international trade is free trade. I am referring to the cloud over the aviation industry in general: what Boeing thinks of Airbus, and what Airbus thinks of Boeing. I think Airbus is right, and we need to promote that.

The other day, somebody was telling me that they thought that France was merciless in its pursuit of commercial advantage. It probably is, and so should we be. It is high time we understood that, stopped complaining about other countries and got on with it ourselves. Let me take a case in point: Poland, a country that has not stopped growing for the past 15 years. Right now it is growing at about 2.5%—although I might be out of date, because I thought of this three hours ago. It is a country that is worth investing in, but where are we when it comes to investing in Poland? Fifth. France, Italy, Germany and America are all above us. We ought to be getting there, and getting going in that field.

My next point concerns the provision of security for investment, in the sense that public policy matters. The green investment bank is a good thing, so too is the green deal, and so is our focus on ensuring that we get high-technology investment in these sectors. The sort of security that we can provide by effective public policy will encourage growth in due course. This country must have that, to solve our problems.

Finally, we all talk about regulation. It is absolutely right to say that there is far too much of it, but I think that it is time we focused on exactly what it is that we should start deregulating. We must set small businesses free, and they need to get the sense that their contribution to this country’s future and their own is something that we want to see. It is a question of growth, and we must supply that growth. That is imperative for our long-term planning and our attitude and strategy for the deficit. Let us pave the way for it with the four recommendations that I have made.