Infrastructure

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

House building was down 8% in 2012 and the think-tank Policy Exchange has warned that the Government could end up presiding over the lowest level of house building since the 1920s. That is the record of the hon. Lady’s Government—not one, I would imagine, that she is proud of.

The Prime Minister says that we are in a global race, but in reality we are hardly out of the starting blocks. The Chancellor has been told time and again—most recently by the International Monetary Fund—that if economic growth undershoots expectations, the Government should boost the economy with greater infrastructure spending. Well, growth has undershot and the economy is shrinking. Over two years, economic growth has been 15 times less than the Chancellor promised in 2010.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Will the shadow Chief Secretary join me in thanking the Chancellor for the £45 million invested in the Stroud to Swindon railway line, work on which has just begun, and which will make a huge difference to my constituency?

[Rachel Reeves]

I wonder whether the next Government Member to intervene will congratulate the Chancellor on spending £12.8 billion less over three years than the plans he inherited from the previous Labour Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Carmichael]

rose—

[Mr Rob Wilson]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Clark]

Our capital revenue spending would have been determined by a visit to the International Monetary Fund if we had followed the course set by the Opposition.

In the years prior to the financial crisis the previous Government ran the biggest structural deficit in the G7. Despite the denials of the shadow Chancellor, that is a matter of record, and the fact that he refuses to acknowledge what has now been made very clear merits an apology.

One of the most enduring mysteries of the 13 years in which Labour was in office is what they did with the money. We would think that 13 years in which they spent, taxed and borrowed like no peacetime Government before would at least have left us with an infrastructure that we could have been proud of and that would have been world-beating.

[Neil Carmichael]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the almost 30 million jobs we now have in this country will benefit enormously from the fact that we are at last getting something done about broadband, a massively important infrastructure project? We are spending a huge amount on it, and just this week I heard about how much progress we are making in Gloucestershire.

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is right. Not just in our cities, but also in our rural areas, during Labour’s 13 years in office broadband went backwards relative to the rest of the world. We are now addressing that and making progress.