Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Paul Scully and Christopher Pincher

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I will come back to the national living wage.

The platitudes on the Ed stone were in stark contrast to the measured policies in the Budget.

Hon. Members can talk about semantics and about whether it is the national minimum wage or the national living wage. What we have seen is a significant—

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the doubling of the workforce at Jaguar Land Rover from 3,000 to 6,000 in three years is not semantics? Those are real jobs for real people—a real opportunity that we are giving those people, which the Opposition never did.

[Paul Scully]

Absolutely. I could not have said it better. The number of jobs that we have created and the amount of wages that we are putting in people’s pockets are real measures. With this increase in the national living wage, the Chancellor has put cash in people’s pockets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

The combination of measures—paying the lowest paid more and softening the cost to employers with the increase in employment allowance— will help businesses solve that problem themselves.

The Budget is only one part of helping to build growth and productivity. It is the Whitehall part, but we also have the town hall part. We need to look at our changing high streets and at issues such as parking. For example, Ross’s Fruiterers in Worcester Park is a real centre of the community—my hon. Friends the Members for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) and for Braintree (James Cleverly) made similar points—because everybody knows Ross Nelson and uses his business as their local shop. The key issue for him is parking, as it is for hundreds of shops and small businesses in Sutton and Cheam and Worcester Park. He needs stop-and-shop parking so that his delivery vans can come and go. That is a matter not for the Chancellor, but for the local authority and Transport for London, so we need to work in partnership.

The third part of the jigsaw is businesses themselves. As we heard earlier, Governments do not create jobs; businesses do. Having been a businessman for 20 years, I feel that, in becoming a politician, I am a poacher turned gamekeeper. However, I still believe that business people are far better placed than any politician to solve the problems faced by retailers dealing with changing high streets or by small businesses trying to attract more customers and grow. Members will remember Ronald Reagan’s remark that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help.”

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to my hon. Friend, who is being generous in giving way. Of course, the Labour party was never there to help business when it was in government, because it introduced regulation after regulation. Is not regulation bad for business, and should not the Government—