Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hammond]

We need to invest in our infrastructure and the skills of our people, we need to ensure that our high growth businesses have access to long-term capital, and address the regional disparity in productivity performance. If we can tackle those four things, we can start to close Britain’s productivity gap and see real wages rising sustainably over many years ahead.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Speaking to the Treasury Committee earlier this month about the transition agreement for exiting the European Union, the Chancellor said that

“it will still have a very high value at Christmas and early in the New Year. But as we move through 2018, its value to everybody will diminish significantly.”

Yesterday, however, the Prime Minister told us that we will not get a transition agreement until October next year at the earliest. Does the Chancellor stand by the very different view he expressed just a fortnight ago?

[Mr Hammond]

As I have said several times today, we are reassured by the fact that at the European Council the 27 agreed to start the internal preparatory discussions on an implementation period. We are absolutely aware of the needs of business in this area, and they have been reinforced again by business leaders this week. We are confident that we will be able to deliver reassurance to business in accordance with its needs.