Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

My hon. Friend is right that we will be releasing £19 million for community-led housing in the south-west. I look forward to discussing with him how we might best approach that issue. We are also introducing a new right to build and reforms to planning, which will boost the custom-build sector in Cornwall and beyond.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Labour Government underfunded infrastructure projects in the south-west, resulting in lower productivity in the region and hence less of a contribution to the national economy than we should have had, but that it is this Government who are turning that around with their huge £7.6 billion commitment to infrastructure and connectivity?

[Mr Speaker]

Just as long as the Chief Secretary focuses on what this Government are doing. He does not need to burble on about the past.

--- Later in debate ---

[Harriett Baldwin]

The last time I looked, I thought it was also Labour policy to have such a referendum, but I agree with the hon. Lady that it is very important that she and others get out the message about the value of exports and the importance for manufacturing of the UK’s membership of the single market. That is why I shall vote in the same way as her on 23 June.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The First Secretary of State and Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)]

The core purpose of the Treasury is to ensure the stability and prosperity of the economy.

[Rebecca Pow]

The innovative Claims Consortium Group in Taunton Deane has just received an Investors in People gold standard award, one of only 300 companies in the UK to have done so. It began in a back bedroom in Milverton just a few years ago, and it now employs 300 people. Does my right hon. Friend agree that not only is Taunton Deane an excellent place to do business, as this company demonstrates, but so is the whole of the wider south-west, thanks to the infrastructure and connectivity injections this Government are giving it?

[Mr Osborne]

Let me join my hon. Friend in congratulating the Claims Consortium Group on its award. I am glad that it has been recognised for its hard work. She is absolutely right that Taunton, and indeed the whole of the south-west, is a great place to do business. We are now investing huge sums in the roads and railways, broadband and housing. Of course, without her I do not think we would be having the A358 upgrade. There is a general lesson, which is that when the south-west votes blue, the voice of the south-west is heard in Parliament.