Nick Smith
Main Page: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney)Department Debates - View all Nick Smith's debates with the Department for Education
(12 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Michael Fallon
We shall be playing our part in next week’s global entrepreneurship week, with 2,500 events throughout the country. I shall also be promoting a range of other Government schemes such as the CEiS scheme, which encourages more investment by entrepreneurs in start-up companies, and a number of other schemes that encourage enterprise in our schools and colleges to help those who are thinking of starting up companies as soon as they leave further or higher education.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
On economic growth, does the Minister agree with the National Audit Office’s assessment that a “significant portion” of the regional growth fund has been
“allocated to projects that create or safeguard relatively few jobs for the money invested”?
What steps is he going to take to address this concern?
Michael Fallon
I do not wholly accept that criticism. The regional growth fund has been a key part of creating and safeguarding 500,000 new jobs in rounds 1, 2 and 3. I find the logic of the National Audit Office report somewhat perverse. It argues that we should look only at net jobs. If a plant in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency closed with the loss of 500 jobs and 450 of the people affected were subsequently employed elsewhere, he would not stand up in this House and say that he had only lost 50 jobs.