Budget Resolutions

Debate between Rebecca Long Bailey and Angus Brendan MacNeil

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

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

The hon. Lady misses the point. The UK has been below the OECD average of 2.4% of GDP for years, and we are way behind global leaders such as South Korea, Japan, Finland and Sweden, which all spend at least 3% of GDP on R and D. If we are to be in any way capable of competing on a world stage, we have to up our game. If the Government really want us to be at the forefront of the fourth industrial revolution, they should be aiming above the average, rather than just trying to catch up.

Furthermore, not reforming where and how it is spent risks widening regional divides, as almost half of all research funding currently goes to the south-east. To quote a Conservative Member:

“If we just put more money into the same funding streams we will have the same outcomes and continue to spend half the science budget in just three cities.”

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Lady is talking about competing with our international competitors. Where will her industrial strategy be on trade defence? We know the Conservative Government do not seem to have trade defence, but she supports them on the UK being out of the customs union, and I presume she has the same view of not wanting to partition Ireland with a customs union. Therefore she would be running no tariffs on the Irish border and there would be no trade defence. Where would that leave her industrial strategy, given that, we must remember, there was not a hair’s breadth between the Tories and Labour on austerity? Labour was going to do £7 billion-worth of cuts and, with students, it is responsible for £6,000 of the £9,000. Where is Labour different from the Conservatives on trade defence and industrial strategy, particularly with reference to the Irish border?