Budget Resolutions

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 28th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

Frankly, I expect better from the hon. Lady; she usually makes very measured contributions. If she lets me continue, I will explain a little about what happened. Perhaps she will make different comments if she asks another question later.

It made perfect sense to use that economic turning point as an opportunity to invest in the development of our industrial base and to address the deep structural problems that had been emerging in our economy since the early 1980s. However, what happened was the scaling back of investment and funding in the tools that business needs to grow and succeed, such as skills, infrastructure, research and development, and access to long-term patient capital.

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

As the hon. Lady is taking a trip down memory lane, does she recall the Labour party’s repeated predictions when we embarked on this necessary course of public spending restraint that it would lead to 1 million jobs being lost? In fact, 3 million jobs have been created.

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

Again, we have a Conservative Member who struggles with reality. I urge him to speak to workers in his constituency and ask them about the quality of said employment. I speak to workers in my constituency, and they are struggling in an era of casualised, low-paid, insecure work.

Our productivity was certainly impeded, but the picture worsens still when we focus on the recent productivity and investment figures of many British regions and nations. Stark research recently published by the Centre for Cities shows that London and the south-east are up to 44% more productive than many other British regions, and the Institute for Public Policy Research’s commission on economic justice has found that Britain is the most regionally imbalanced country in the whole of Europe.

What have we seen after seven years of this Government’s single-minded obsession with cutting the national debt? Higher debt and unprecedented downward revisions of GDP growth. As every economist knows, the only way substantially to manage the national debt is by growing the economy, but this Government have simply tried to deflect attention away from their miserable performance on GDP.

--- Later in debate ---

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the eloquent remarks of the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). I am conscious that we are on a tight time limit, so I shall confine my remarks to the question of productivity and its implications for public spending. By the OBR’s own recognition, many of the numbers that it has produced are speculative, but it is clear that we have a long-term productivity challenge, as the Chancellor has rightly recognised in his Budget. This challenge has been disguised in recent years by our membership of the European Union, in that we have had large-scale migration of highly skilled migrants from eastern Europe, and we have principally had to compete only with European markets. Both of those factors are rightly going to change as a result of the vote, and we consequently need to raise our sights and think about the public spending choices made by this country relative to those of other countries, such as South Korea, which are likely to be our competitors in the years to come. When we look at that, we see that we have some difficult questions to answer.

The amount that this country spends on welfare includes almost £100 billion on in-work welfare and more than £100 billion on retirement welfare. In comparison, South Korea spends but 2% of its national income on welfare, so we have some choices to make, and we must be clear about those choices. Every £1 that we choose to spend on welfare is £1 that we cannot spend on our education system, on our research and development or on our infrastructure. All that money could be used to increase the long-term productive capacity of our economy, and a failure to spend in those areas reduces that capacity and reduces our potential output. We therefore have to look at each of those areas and ask what more we can do.

[Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend on his speech. In relation to the more productive ways in which he thinks Government funds could be spent, will he elucidate further on what aspects of the Budget he feels could be upgraded or extended?

[Oliver Dowden]

We should consider whether we are able to release further resources for infrastructure spending. For example, the materials used for digging Crossrail 1 could be released straight into Crossrail 2, and we could look at HS2 and see whether we can release resources into HS3. It is those sort of long-term decisions that countries such as South Korea, China and India are making and that we are constrained from making due to excessive spending on current priorities.

I therefore urge the Government to continue with their agenda for in-work benefits, whereby we are increasing the personal allowance, so that people on the lowest incomes pay less tax, and increasing their income through the national living wage, so that they are less reliant on the state. We are also reforming welfare through universal credit to ensure that people keep more of what they earn and that they are constantly incentivised to move further away from reliance upon the state and towards self-reliance, and the case for doing so is both economic and moral. I urge the Government to ignore the Opposition Members who constantly harp on about universal credit. If they actually go to their local jobcentre, as I had the privilege of doing just last week, they will hear countless stories of how universal credit actually incentivises people to take on more hours of work and creates a smooth path out of welfare and into work.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) eloquently made the case for looking at retirement benefits. It cannot be right that people who are perfectly capable of looking after themselves have access to universal benefits that they simply do not need. Equally, we need to look at the balance between the younger generation and the older generation. The previous Government rightly committed to a deal whereby we increased retirement benefits, so that people had dignity and security in retirement, but we need to consider the rate of increase and ask ourselves whether it is fair that the older generation’s benefits are increasing at a faster rate than those of people who are in work. Surely equality demands that such benefits should be increased only with increases in working-age benefits. If we do not embrace and make such choices, we will surely have them forced upon us as we fall poorer and experience lower living standards than those of our competitor nations.

Industrial Strategy

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I will indeed. The Minister for Climate Change and Industry—there is no more energetic person than the Minister of State—met the steel sector today to pursue those discussions. The sector features in the White Paper published today and the hon. Gentleman knows that I agree with him on its importance. I am full of enthusiasm for that being brought to a conclusion.

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s emphasis on creative industries and construction, both of which are large employers in my constituency. Does he agree that there is a real risk of inflationary pressure in the construction sector, particularly if we are to meet our ambitious housing targets; and that in the short term, as we leave Europe, that will mean a need for continuing immigration and, in the longer run, for encouraging more young people into this industry, which is often very well rewarded?

[Greg Clark]

As my hon. Friend knows from the Budget, we are committed to a big expansion of housebuilding. It is therefore important to ensure we have the skills and the workforce to take up those opportunities. One of the prime areas of focus in the construction sector deal is investment by the sector in training the next generation of construction workers, so we can avoid precisely the problem he describes.

Industrial Strategy Consultation

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I urge the hon. Lady to read the Green Paper, in which she will see an absolutely crystal-clear commitment to making sure that all parts of the United Kingdom are able to share prosperity. That is good for those places and good for the UK as a whole.

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

I welcome the Green Paper’s recognition of the vital role of the creative industries, the one sector that grew throughout the whole of the last recession. Will the Secretary of State reassure me that that extends to the TV and film industry? The recent hit Netflix series “The Crown”, which was filmed in my constituency, is a wonderful example of how jobs, investment and exports can be generated by the sector. Does he agree that that requires not only the right skills, but the requisite supply of commercial space, particularly in the south-east?

[Greg Clark]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The creative industries, together, have some claim to be Britain’s most successful sector in recent years—they have been growing very strongly. Sir Peter Bazalgette has agreed to work with the industries to look at what they need to build on that success in the future and to continue to create the great jobs they have produced. I look forward to that work.

Corporate Governance

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

That is a useful parable, which just goes to illustrate further the point I was making about the commitment we have on the Conservative side of the House. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) is also a veteran of industrial action, showing that my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) is not alone in this shared history.

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

The self-serving practices of many executives have done much to undermine popular capitalism in this country, but does my right hon. Friend agree that, although it is important to review company law in this fashion, that is no substitute for basic morality, which has been sadly lacking in many recent cases?

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is right in what he says, and I think Conservative Members would not regard legislation as being the way to cure all ills. I would take issue with him to this extent only: in general, the standards of both governance and behaviour are very high in this country, and most employees have good jobs in successful businesses. We should be proud of the standards that we have, while taking action against those who depart from them.