Autumn Statement Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Autumn Statement

Stewart Hosie Excerpts
Tuesday 29th November 2011

(12 years, 11 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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George Osborne Portrait Mr Osborne
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Not only was the future jobs fund primarily aimed at the Government employing people in the public sector, which of course was unsustainable with the very large deficit that Labour was running, but actually it did not work on its own terms, because 50% of the people who used the fund were unemployed within 12 weeks. The youth contract that the Deputy Prime Minister has worked on, which he presented last week, will make a real difference.

Stewart Hosie Portrait Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
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There were two key announcements today. One was the national loan guarantee scheme and the £20 billion of credit easing, and the second was the investment in infrastructure of perhaps £30 billion. When does the Chancellor expect the business finance backed by the scheme to start flowing, and how much infrastructure spend does he expect this year and next, when it will have the biggest effect?

George Osborne Portrait Mr Osborne
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We are undertaking an ambitious programme of credit easing, and I hope to get it running in the next couple of months. We have to clear the state aid hurdles, and we are working flat out to do that, but I am confident that because we are partly following the European Investment Bank’s scheme in the UK, a lot of the work has already been done. The precise numbers on infrastructure in the next two years are set out in the book.