Stewart Hosie
Main Page: Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party - Dundee East)Trade, Exports, Innovation and Productivity
Stewart Hosie Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House regrets the continuing lack of balance in the UK economy and the UK Government’s over-reliance on unsustainable consumer debt to support economic growth; notes in particular the UK’s poor export performance, which resulted in a trade deficit in goods of £123 billion in 2014; further notes the UK’s continuing poor productivity record and the lack of a credible long-term plan to improve it; and is deeply concerned by the UK Government’s change to Innovate UK funding of innovation from grants to loans, which this House believes will result in a deterioration of private sector research and development.
This is a serious debate, and it is appropriate that we have it today given the news published yesterday that UK industrial output has suffered its sharpest fall since 2013, and the further assessment that describes how real-terms earnings in the UK are still substantially lower than they were in 2009 and that even GDP growth over the past decade or so has been lower than that of Japan during its decade of stagflation. It is important that we recognise that the matters we are going to address are not short-term issues. This is not about a quick political hit; it is about trying to get to the root cause of a long-standing and systemic problem in the UK—the failure to address trade, exports, innovation and productivity, in total, over a prolonged period.
We have chosen to debate all these matters because they are linked. The debate is also, rightly, about the imbalance in the UK economy, because that is part of the equation. That imbalance, or, more accurately, those imbalances are recognised by this Government, but they cannot and will not be resolved, first, without the real political will to do so, and secondly, until the other areas that we are discussing are fully and properly addressed. The imbalances in the economy are not only between England and Scotland or London—a city previously described by a Minister as a black hole sucking resources and talents out of everywhere else in the UK—and the rest of the UK, but still, sadly, between manufacturing and services, businesses that export and those that do not, and companies that innovate and those that do not.
The impact of all this is most starkly seen in the balance of trade numbers. For the full year in 2014, the UK ran a balance of trade deficit of £93 billion. For the same year, the deficit in trade and goods was an extraordinary £123 billion—that is £123 billion in the red just in the trade in goods. The impact in GDP terms, as is well known and published by the Government, was negative, and unsurprisingly the summer Budget confirmed that it would remain negative in every single year of the forecast period in this Parliament through to 2020.
Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has referred to Japan. He will not have missed the fact that Europe has been in recession for much of the period in which our economy has been growing, and that has had an inevitable impact on our balance of trade with our biggest partners.
Stewart Hosie
If the trade deficit was simply a consequence of the deep recession, the hon. Gentleman would be right, but, as I will demonstrate, this has gone on not for five, 10, 20 or 30 years, but 50 years. We need to address that deep, underlying systemic issue.
As I said, the contribution to GDP is negative for the entire forecast period, as published in the summer Budget and again in the autumn statement. Worryingly, those figures were marked down—they were actually worse than the corresponding forecast published in the spring Budget before the election. We are not seeing a stabilisation, or a recovery that would allow us some sense of normality, but a continuing decline. That appears, as I hope to demonstrate later, in almost every metric that we look at.
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Office for Budget Responsibility expects productivity growth to return to its historical average by the end of 2017?
Stewart Hosie
Yes, I have seen the OBR forecasts, and I will quote some of them later. However, I am taken by what the Chancellor said more recently than the latest OBR forecast, which is that it is no longer a case of “mission accomplished”, almost as if he is getting his excuses in first and preparing to blame other people. Despite the OBR forecasts, things are not all hunky-dory; everything in the garden is not rosy. As I pointed out, when we are looking at GDP growth over a decade worse than that of Japan’s lost decade, it would be wrong to be complacent like some of those in the hon. and learned Lady’s Government.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
When the Chancellor said to the country at large, and to the Tory press in particular, that the economy was running into the buffers, was he not really demonstrating that the long-term economic plan was just a mirage?
Stewart Hosie
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The long-term economic plan is just a soundbite. It was predicated on the deficit being reduced, the debt being reduced, and borrowing falling to barely £20 billion last year. Every single one of the targets the Government set, they failed to meet. The Chancellor did not meet a single one of the key fiscal targets that he set for himself in the previous Parliament.
The key thing about the impact of trade and exports on GDP is that the figures are negative and have been marked down. I ask the House to consider how different that reality is from the promise made by the Chancellor when he stated that exports would be a significant contributor to GDP growth, primarily to shift the economy away from a reliance on household consumption. As we saw in yesterday’s reports, because industrial output is down and exports are likely to continue to fall, and certainly not to grow in the way that he has promised, we will continue to see a dependence on household consumption and a rise in household debt that is inconsistent with a properly rebalanced economy.
Alex Salmond (Gordon) (SNP)
A great deal of private sector industrial investment over the past 30 years has been connected with the oil industry. I am thinking of the threat to jobs and working families in Scotland, in particular. Will my hon. Friend commend a system of exploration credits like those successfully introduced in Norway some years ago to kick-start exploration as a means of addressing this crisis? After 30 years of Governments raking in £300 billion of revenue, should it not be payback time for North sea workers?
Stewart Hosie
It certainly should in the sense that the sector is important not simply for Aberdeen or for Scotland, but for a supply chain throughout the UK. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan) set out, in his question at Prime Minister’s questions, the potential damage should the sector continue to suffer. This Government—indeed, all Governments, but particularly these Ministers, because many of them are believers—should do several things: continue to protect people who want to enter the sector by making sure they are properly trained; continue to support the supply chain in the North sea basin; and, to internationalise, look again at supporting the industry as it cuts its own costs and of course at the overall fiscal framework, which is a substantial cost. Essentially, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) said, the Government should look again at all the credits available, whether for exploration or production and whether for geographic areas or specific oil types, to maximise absolutely the longevity, employment and contribution to the economy of a sector that, as he rightly reminds the Government, has raked in more than £300 billion since oil started coming ashore.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
Does the hon. Gentleman see any inconsistency, in the answer he has just given to his colleague, between looking for ways to increase the output of North sea oil and the Scottish National party’s aim of totally decarbonising energy production in Scotland?
Stewart Hosie
No. The decarbonisation of electricity production is sensible for many reasons, which may well include carbon capture and storage. On a number of occasions during the past five years, and very recently under this Government, we have seen the cancellation of a competition to develop an industrial-sized testbed to show the efficacy of a technology which would make us a world leader.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Stewart Hosie
I will not give way at the moment, because I have been quite generous. I will make a little progress, and then I will be happy to do so.
I was talking about exports. Let us remember what the Chancellor said in his Budget speech in 2012. He acknowledged the UK’s falling share of world exports, but still said that
“we want to double our nation’s exports to £1 trillion this decade.”—[Official Report, 21 March 2012; Vol. 542, c. 797.]
Total export sales in 2013 were £521 billion, which was a reasonable start, but that fell to £513 billion in 2014. The numbers are moving in the wrong direction; yet the Chancellor and this Government still expect us to believe that exports could in effect double over this Parliament. The OBR’s most recent forecast suggests that they will miss that target by about £350 billion, so the target set is simply unachievable.
That is not an abstract political or obscure economic point. The jobs of real people depend on a thriving and growing manufacturing export market. The hopes and aspirations of people in Scotland and throughout the UK for a real rebalanced economy depend on the rhetoric and pipedreams of an out-of-touch Chancellor. However, that was not the start and end of the Chancellor and the Government’s rhetoric on exports. They described how they wanted to
“make the UK the best place in Europe to start…and grow a business; encourage investment and exports as a route to a more balanced economy”.
The Chancellor said:
“So this is our plan for growth. We want the words ‘Made in Britain’, ‘Created in Britain’, ‘Designed in Britain’ and ‘Invented in Britain’ to drive our nation forward—a Britain carried aloft by the march of the makers.”—[Official Report, 23 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 966.]
They were powerful words, but, given the reality, no more than rather empty rhetoric.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
The SNP spokesman is right to point out the importance of exports, although the current account gap has been falling consistently during the past two years. Does he not agree, however, that the way to increase exports in the long run is through innovation, new technologies and investment? By being part of a larger United Kingdom, Scotland is likely to get greater quantities of all of those—through the Technology Strategy Board—than if it was on its own.
Stewart Hosie
I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s assessment that we need more innovation, exports, technology and investment, all of which I will come on to. The Government and I can have a debate about precisely what they are doing, but his assertion that being part of the UK will allow such things in bigger quantities is tenuous at best and probably not confirmed by the reality.
To return to the Chancellor’s “march of the makers” speech, if those words appeared far-fetched when he first said them, they appear rather shallow and empty in the light of the reality of what is going on. In that regard, during the last Parliament—this is linked to the intervention about investment—another Tory-led Government, in a press release about business investment, a balanced and sustainable economy and all the matters we are discussing, boasted about investment in the UK Green Investment Bank. We supported that institution. We believed that it would deliver support for innovation and growth in a new industry, and indeed it has done so. Incredibly, however, it has been systematically undermined by this Government, while many of the changes they have announced since are undermining the commitment to the green economy generally.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
One of the levers at the disposal of any Government to increase exports is to push aggressively for new free trade agreements. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the SNP has been less than fulsome in its support for free trade agreements around the world, particularly the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, on which the SNP’s position is opaque at best?
Stewart Hosie
It is not opaque, so let me make the position really clear to the hon. Gentleman. We welcome trade agreements. We think that they are a good thing in general. However, we will not countenance a trade agreement that opens the door to the systematic undermining of our essential public services. That is not opaque; that is crystal clear.
We need rather more than words from the Government: we need action to reverse declines, particularly in manufacturing, and to ensure that the last quarter’s fall in manufacturing output—which I mentioned earlier—does not become a pattern. At least in part, that will require—again, this is a response to the intervention—more innovation.
Stewart Hosie
No. I have already given way to the hon. and learned Lady.
Innovation is as much a part of building a larger, more productive and faster growing manufacturing base as it is important in its own right. We know about the positive impact of innovation from many sources, not least the recent PricewaterhouseCoopers global innovation survey. It confirmed what it describes as a “direct link” between companies that focus on innovation and those that successfully grow faster. As I am sure the Minister will know, the UK’s most innovative companies grew on average 50% faster than the least innovative.
We also know that substantial problems need to be overcome. While 32% of UK companies saw innovation as very important to their success, the global figure was 43%, and while 16% of UK companies saw product innovation as a priority in the coming year, that was barely half the global figure. Most worryingly, although the UK—Scotland and the rest of the UK—has in many ways a clear competitive advantage in the university sector, a significantly lower proportion of our businesses planned to collaborate with academics than did their international competitors.
I want to say a little about the approach we have taken in Scotland specifically to deal with that issue. Funding has been approved for five new innovation centres in industrial biotech, oil and gas, aquaculture, big data and construction. That funding has been put in place to build on the original three centres that were launched three years ago, which covered the growing areas of stratified medicine, sensors and imaging, and digital health. There is the provision, essentially, of £78 million to help the development of 1,000 new inventions, products or services. That cash will also—this addresses the international comparison—support 1,200 businesses to work directly with universities.
The UK has Innovate UK and we have looked closely at its delivery plan. The SNP welcomes aspects of it, not least the £1.5 billion global challenge fund. However, the overall policy of changing Innovate UK’s funding model so that, by 2020, £165 million of innovation grants will be delivered as loans sends out all the wrong signals. We are concerned that it may suppress essential innovation even further compared with our international competitors. That fear was confirmed by KPMG’s head of small business accounting, who said that the measure was
“a false economy that threatens to stall the growth of small businesses across the UK.”
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that measure sends all the wrong signals to companies that are thinking of investing, because what it really says is that the future is uncertain with this Government?
Stewart Hosie
Indeed it does. The quotes from businesses when it was announced were extremely clear. They are happy to seek bank funding and to use their own resources, but when they are undertaking what may be slightly risky innovation and R and D, they have an expectation of a little help from Government. If that is a grant, the work can proceed and the thinking can go ahead. If it is a loan that requires to be repaid, that might just tip the balance in favour of the risk being too great, which will drive down innovation even further.
The reason innovation is so vital, particularly in manufacturing—and why it is so important to encourage it—is that as it has fallen as a share of R and D investment over the past 20 years, manufacturing exports, jobs and output have also fallen. One can see the speed and length of that decline. Manufacturing has gone from making up 30% of the economy in the 1970s to less than 10% today; from accounting for more than 20% of all jobs in the 1980s to only 8% today; and from making up a quarter of all business investment in the 1990s to barely 15% today.
We see the reduction in global export market share in the OBR’s most recent fiscal forecast, in which it falls throughout the forecast period to the end of this Parliament. What is more worrying is that the figures in the November forecast were marked down in every single year from those in the July forecast. Everything is going in the wrong direction. The complacency from the Government and the limited plan they have are simply no longer enough. That is why we need an unrelenting focus on innovation in manufacturing in relation to trade and exports.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
I welcome this debate and the hon. Gentleman’s focus on rebalancing the economy, which is undoubtedly a huge issue. However, when we talk about rebalancing the economy, we have to remember that because the recession in 2008 was a financial recession, it was inevitably followed by monetary policy hitting the floor, perpetuating higher house prices and all those other things we wanted to avoid, but which were an economic necessity. That being so, does he regret the role his party played in advising Royal Bank of Scotland to purchase ABN AMRO, which ushered in the huge financial crash and brought down our financial giant?
Stewart Hosie
There is a historical disconnect here. The fight over ABN AMRO was between the board of RBS and the board of Barclays. One of them called it wrong and one of them got lucky. I suspect that my input and that of my right hon. and hon. Friends had precisely no bearing whatsoever on Mr Goodwin’s decision to persuade his board to buy ABN AMRO. The suggestion is quite extraordinary.
I have said that we need an unrelenting focus on innovation in manufacturing in relation to trade and exports. Although manufacturing has suffered the largest falls, it still accounts for 44% of all UK exports because the deficit in trading goods is so large. Any Government who are serious about rebalancing the economy and correcting the trade deficit in goods must have a laser-like focus on encouraging innovation in manufacturing, as well as on supporting existing exporting businesses.
This debate is about more than innovation, manufacturing and exports; it is about boosting productivity. That is vital because—this is undisputed—both Scotland and the UK sit only towards the top of the third quartile of advanced countries by GDP per hour worked. We are below many smaller European countries and, importantly, below major competitors such as the US, Germany, France and even Italy. I am pleased that Scottish output is now 4% higher than pre-crisis levels. That is a good thing, but clearly there is substantially more to be done, not least because UK productivity growth is at 1.3% a year, which is barely half the level of the 2% pre-crisis rate.
Scotland has an economic plan based on four principles to boost productivity: investment in education and infrastructure; internationalisation and encouraging exports; innovation, which, as we have discussed, is essential; and—in many ways the most important aspect—inclusive growth. The latter point is vital because we know from the numbers—we have all seen them—that the UK lost 9% of GDP growth between 1990 and 2010 because of rising inequality. We are concerned that that mistake is being repeated by this Government, with their arbitrary surplus fiscal rule, which is requiring them to cut far more than is necessary to run a balanced economy and denuding them of the resources that are needed to tackle inequality and maximise economic growth.
Lucy Frazer
The hon. Gentleman referred with positivity to the figures in Scotland. Is he aware that, according to the BBC two hours ago,
“Scotland’s economy grew slightly over the summer but continued to lag behind the UK as a whole, according to official figures.”?
Stewart Hosie
Absolutely. I was describing the growth since the pre-crisis level. The quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year figures are undeniable. That is why I said that we all have far more to do. I will make criticisms of the UK Government where they are valid, but I certainly will not deny the numbers. I hope that the hon. and learned Lady will welcome the fact that we are 4% ahead of pre-crisis levels, notwithstanding the difficulties we have seen in the North sea. That is a quite remarkable achievement, when the limited powers of the Scottish Government are considered. In terms of the deployment of those powers—[Interruption.] The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise is chuntering away on the Treasury Bench, as she is wont to do. She will be throwing her arms in the air and harrumphing soon. If she wants to intervene, I am happy to have the debate—maybe not.
Returning to the powers that have been deployed in Scotland, we have a Scottish business pledge, which requires firms, in return for the support of Scottish agencies, to seek to innovate, to seek and take export opportunities, and to pay the living wage. That is part of the solution to tackling inequality and delivering inclusive growth that will enable us to avoid the loss of GDP output that we saw in the 20 years to 2010. I urge the UK Government to take a similar approach.
I do that not least because our concerns about a lack of balance and the need for action to tackle the ongoing productivity challenge are shared by the International Monetary Fund, which is often prayed in aid by the Government. The IMF has spoken of the need to lessen wealth inequality and the need for increased spending on infrastructure. It has also called for an enhanced focus on decentralisation.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is making important points about inequality, and if we are serious about addressing sustainable equality—the Government do not seem to be—it is important to invest more in people on low incomes, and to reduce the gap between them and people on high incomes. I am particularly interested in his point about productivity. Since 2006, what has the SNP been able to do to reduce the productivity gap in the OECD?
Stewart Hosie
I do not have the figure for 2006 to date, but if I can get hold of that specific number I will happily provide it to the hon. Lady. The whole point of tackling the attainment gap, health, investment, supporting innovation, encouraging exports, and supporting, promoting and helping the delivery of the living wage, is so that everything that can be done is being done—as it must be. It is all part of a project of lessening inequality to deliver precisely the inclusive growth that avoids the shortfall in economic growth that we have seen from the UK Government.
I was making a point about some of the demands from the IMF, one of which was an enhanced focus on decentralisation. That is vital if we are effectively to use all tools at our disposal to tackle the economic challenges we face. To give one example, research and development tax credits to support innovation are a function of corporation tax. As corporation tax is not devolved to Scotland, one of the most important tools to help support that research is denied to the Scottish Government in their efforts to build on the work already being put in place. Given the challenges we all face, that is illogical.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the role that devolved institutions can play in helping to boost productivity. May I commend to him the work of the Greater Manchester combined authority, which in its new devolved functions has awarded funding to English Fine Cottons so that it can open a £5.8 million new cotton mill in Dukinfield in my constituency—the first cotton mill to open in Greater Manchester, or “Cottonopolis”, for more than 40 years?
Stewart Hosie
I welcome that intervention and the new cotton mill—I hope it is a huge success. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point: there is no point in devolving powers and responsibilities, whether to Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, parts of England, or anywhere else, unless the funding and ability and authority to raise the cash go with it. That is the weakness in some of the asymmetric devolution that the Government have put in place. We believe that the Government should look again at their decision to replace £165 million of innovation grants with loans, and that they should deliver real devolution—not least of corporation tax and its associated credits—so that those tools are available to all the devolved Administrations to maximise R and D support.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Northern Ireland now has record employment and higher levels of international investment than at any other time in our history. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that having a strong devolved aspect to trade, enterprise and investment helps to boost the competitiveness of the UK regions, particularly Northern Ireland?
Stewart Hosie
Yes, absolutely. The more we can devolve, including authority and real power, the more that people on the ground can do—that is self-evident. The talk of record employment is good, and I think there is near record employment almost everywhere. The issue, however, is that real-term wages have fallen and remain five points lower than before the crisis. If we are to drag living standards up, we must do all those other things as well, but—in general terms—the devolution of real power is absolutely right.
On the transfer of power, the Government should recognise that a comprehensive solution to boost productivity is required, which covers investment and education infrastructure, internationalisation, innovation, and the policies to deliver inclusive growth. They should recognise that rebalancing the economy needs a focus, not just on London versus the rest of the UK, but on the growth benefits from those firms and the whole economy, and we should export, innovate, and support more of them to do so. That focus should be heavily weighted to manufacturing because the fall in R and D, jobs, exports and output from that sector cannot be allowed to continue.
Above all, although we believe and agree with setting ambitious targets, unrealistic and unachievable export targets that fly in the face of reality will simply weaken the Government’s credibility, in exactly the same way that failing to meet debt, deficit and borrowing targets did in the last Parliament. To set a target of doubling exports without the means being put in place to deliver that is bad economics and bad politics.
Let me turn briefly to what the Government have said in this Parliament. In July they published, “Fixing the foundations: Creating a more prosperous nation”, which was supposed to cover many of the areas that we are discussing today. It is very thin. Their approach to raising productivity is covered by two bullet points, a paragraph, and a little chart. The section on long-term investment merely confirms that long-term investment, going back as far as the 1960s, has bounced along the bottom of the OECD average—the 10th to 90th percentile range for those who care about these things. It hit that average in one year around 1990, but has fallen off the bottom of that for many years since.
Investment is primarily in transport. I welcome transport investment, as well as the increase in capital investment in the summer Budget. Let us be under no illusions, however, because that change came about only after the Government were discovered cutting capital spending for every year of the forecast period in the spring Budget. They have the audacity in the “Fixing the foundations” report to talk about:
“Reliable and low-carbon energy, at a price we can afford”,
while systematically undermining the sector and the Green Investment Bank. On innovation and industry, which is at the heart of the solution to a long-term problem, we have three small paragraphs.
The document was published only six months ago—[Interruption.] I am sorry if the Minister is slightly bored hearing about her Government’s failings. It mentions £1 trillion of exports by 2020. That shows a modest rise in exports to BRIC countries, a modest rise in exports to the rest of the world, and a catastrophic decline—the Minister is shaking his head—in exports to the richest OECD countries. That document was published by the Government in this Parliament. A sense of reality is probably a good starting point for a debate.
Each of the areas that we have started to discuss today could form a debate in its own right, but we believe that the motion is a starting point to begin properly to understand and address UK Government policy weakness in the areas of trade, exports, productivity, innovation, and a fundamental rebalancing of the economy. I commend the motion to the House.
The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise (Anna Soubry)
I am grateful for the opportunity to debate a number of the Government’s key economic priorities. I will begin, however, by singing the praise of my Cabinet colleague the Secretary of State for Scotland. Not only is he outstanding as a Secretary of State, but today he made a very important announcement about what in many ways should be his private life, although it is not because it is in the public domain. It took great courage, and I am hugely proud to sit in the Cabinet with him. I can see nods all around the Chamber in support of our Secretary of State at what might be a difficult time for many, but I am sure for him is a very happy day. Finally, he can be the man he has always been, and can sing out and be proud of being that man. I pay tribute to him and I am pleased we all agree on that.
Stewart Hosie
It is absolutely right and appropriate for the Secretary of State for Scotland’s Cabinet colleague to announce her support in the Chamber, and Scottish National party Members welcome what has been said. In terms of the debate, however, and notwithstanding that we hope he is happy, may we say that we fundamentally disagree with his politics?
Anna Soubry
I took that as read! I put it on the record that the First Minister for Scotland has tweeted her support. Frankly, I am not surprised. In this day and age, I think most people will just shrug their shoulders and say, “Yeah, whatever. Am I bothered?” Of course we are not. We celebrate what is, and should be, a happy day for my right hon. Friend.
Let us get on with the debate. The motion before us refers to the United Kingdom economy and economic growth. I wish to take a very quick trip down memory lane to put this debate into context, because that is important. The hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) talked about the Government’s record. I want to talk about the past six or seven months, but I also want to talk about the previous five years, notably to remind everybody of the situation we faced back in May 2010. It is important to remind everybody that at that time we were in the worst recession that our nation, the United Kingdom, had faced for 100 years: the biggest budget deficit in our peacetime history and over half a million more people on the dole. That was the situation that we on the Government Benches had to pick up: an economy brought to its knees and on the brink of bankruptcy from Land’s End to John O’Groats, and from London to Inverness and Bodmin. All across our nation, we saw a country on its knees.
To save us from that economic mire we had to take some very difficult decisions to control spending, reduce the deficit and rescue our economy. Those decisions, every single one of them, were opposed by the parties sitting on the Opposition Benches, notably Labour and the SNP. Each and every decision was opposed. How wrong they were. It is thanks to the hard work of the British people that our economic plan has worked and continues to work. The deficit is down by more than half, there are over 2.2 million more people in work, and there are over 900,000 more businesses. The United Kingdom has been the fastest-growing economy in the advanced world. That is a record of which Government Members are proud.
Scotland has been part of that success story. It is unfortunate that the hon. Member for Dundee East has just made us a long speech full of doom and gloom, trotting out this, that and the other and talking down the Scottish economy, because it is part of the United Kingdom economy. That is wrong and sad, because there is a success story.
Anna Soubry
I will give way in a moment; I’m on a roll.
As the Smith report is implemented and the Scotland Bill comes into force, the SNP will finally have the powers it seeks—it will be the most devolved Government in the world—and it will be interesting to see—
Anna Soubry
In a moment.
Then the SNP will have responsibility, and we will see whether it will be able to deliver. I would bet good money that it will not be able to.
Anna Soubry
Our debt has gone up; I am not—[Interruption.] All right; it is not about scoring cheap political points, as the hon. Gentleman knows—obviously I would never engage in such a thing—but he cannot deny that 2 million more people are in work. That is part of our proud record. He should be praising that. The Labour party would do well to do that when we do the right thing. Over 2 million more people in work—why can the hon. Gentleman not give credit where credit is due?
Stewart Hosie
It only took the Minister 12 minutes to revert to type. “Rag, tag and bobtail” if she likes, but that is as nothing compared with how the Scottish people describe her party. However, let me clear up just one little fact about the oil price, which I thought she might raise. Yes, we said it would be $110 a barrel. That is absolutely correct, but can we be absolutely clear that the UK Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change had the barrel price at between $114 and $127, and at the very least admit that the UK Government got it wrong?
Anna Soubry
But the point is that the hon. Gentleman and his party were basing the whole of Scotland’s economic future on oil. How mad was that?
Anna Soubry
It is not for me to speak on behalf of others, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there was no joy on the Government Benches at the fall in the oil price. The joy, I would like to think, was at the point I made, and made rather well. The hon. Gentleman is in a party that put all its faith in the oil price as the salvation of Scotland’s economy and it was absolutely wrong. I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not knowing the constituency he represents, but I suspect it is in the north-east of Scotland. He makes a good point, and this is the only good point, about the concerns we all have about the future of the oil and gas industry.
I am well aware of the importance of the oil industry to north-east Scotland. I am also well aware of the redundancies announced yesterday by BP, and I agree that there is much that we—the hon. Gentleman should note the “we” bit—can do. It would be so good for the UK Government to work with the Scottish Government to make sure that we do all we can. We have a fantastic oil industry, based largely in Aberdeen, that is one of the finest in the world. There is much that we can do, working together, to make sure that we do not see further job losses, especially on the scale we have seen.
Anna Soubry
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but then I want to make some progress.
Stewart Hosie
I thank the Minister for what she has just said, which was helpful. However, she has twice made the incorrect and false assertion that we based any forecast only on oil, which was never true. The Minister has accused others of misleading the public over the approach to TTIP; I hope she does not want to mislead the public over her assertion that the economy is based solely on one industry.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
It is always a great pleasure to follow the Chair of the Select Committee on which I am proud to serve, the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), who gave an interesting speech with a fair balance of criticism and positive views. It was in contrast to the speech from the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), which in both content and delivery reminded me of the Brezhnev era with its catalogue of unremitting misery. I shall spare the blushes of the Chair of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee and just say that unremitting misery is clearly what one gets with socialism, which is why this country has decisively and continuously rejected it.
I shall add to the positive views we have heard by making some comments of my own. I do this with some humility. We are debating some extremely important matters. The Chair of the Select Committee must be embarrassed that he has only two Labour colleagues in the Chamber, including the Whip, who is supposed to get people into the Chamber to take part in debates. Let us hope that as the debate progresses, we see a little more commitment from the Labour party to the entrepreneurs, the small businesses and the wealth creators in our country.
As the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) rightly pointed out when opening the debate, we have to understand Government policy and the matters we are debating today in the context of long-standing issues. We should recognise that in the global economy we are going through a period of substantial overcapacity in production and the transition of some major economies from a production to a consumption sector. That will have an impact on the ability of companies everywhere in the world to export. We have reached a point where—we may disagree on this—the British Government and the British economy have to start living within our means, which has been summed up by the Chancellor as seeking stability and security.
On trade, innovation and productivity, entrepreneurs and business people think about that every day. Low down their list of possible solutions to the issues facing them will be the words, “I had better go and ask my Member of Parliament.” The innovations that we make and the trade and exports that we do will be done by those individuals. I am a strong believer in free market capitalism and in entrepreneurship, and I want a Government and a Business Secretary who believe in that. One of the benefits of the election was a change in the leadership of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to someone who understands the motivations of the person who does not talk in billions and perhaps does not talk in millions, but is taking the first step and the first risk by investing their own money to start their business. Whether they are in Scotland, Bedford or other parts of the world, that is extremely important.
A number of hon. Members have talked about the persistent current account imbalance in the UK. We should bear in mind two things about that. First, if the issue has been there for so long and we have not all fallen apart, something about it must be hidden or going okay. Secondly—lies, damned lies and statistics—we must remember that trade statistics do not include value added. One of the important changes in global trade over the past 30 years has been a shift in the value added in various sectors. The statistics on that may paint a different picture.
Stewart Hosie
The hon. Gentleman is making a thoughtful speech, as ever, and much of what he says is interesting and potentially accurate. However, I am sure that even he would agree that it is worrying when the contribution to GDP growth from exports is continually marked down in forecast after forecast. While there may well be good, hidden things, the general trend is working against growth in the economy.
Richard Fuller
I was just about to agree entirely with what the hon. Gentleman was saying because I thought he was talking about forecasting accuracy—a topic on which, of course, the SNP has a very good track record. The issue of marking down does point to the frailty of setting targets. It is a fair criticism of all Governments that they find it very easy to set targets and then very difficult to meet some of them.
Let me talk about what the Government are doing. First, a number of hon. Members have referred to the very broad nature of the Government’s productivity plan. I see that plan as being more about how we implement things than the variety of outcomes they will have in terms of the overall impact on productivity.
Secondly, the Government’s policy on the living wage will provide a substantial increase in productivity, specifically labour productivity. The living wage is, in essence, a 38% pay increase for the lowest-paid workers in our country. I am sure that the Government and the OBR have factored into their statistics the implications for comparability with other pay rates within the economy. A Conservative Government pushing to increase the wages of some of our hardest-working but lowest-paid workers will have, in a market economy, a positive impact on improving labour productivity.
Stewart Hosie
The Minister has prayed in aid very heavily the productivity plan, “Fixing the foundations”, and he read out a large number of its component parts. Will he do something that his right hon. Friend the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise did not do and commit to repeating that the Government intend to double exports to £1 trillion by 2020? That is also in the plan, so can we take it that that target has now been abandoned?
Joseph Johnson
I shall come on to exports shortly, but we remain strongly committed to that target. It is right that we set ourselves a challenging and ambitious target for exports. The whole Government are working towards achieving that goal.
Our regions are at the centre of our plan. A crucial part of the Government’s plan is to devolve powers to local leaders and enable them to drive growth, attract investment and create jobs, as we are doing with the development of the northern powerhouse and the midlands engine. We have secured an historic city deal for Glasgow and the Clyde valley, and I am pleased that discussions are under way for Aberdeen and Inverness, too.
The manufacturing sector is a part of this renewal. While our manufacturing sector faces headwinds, as we have seen in recent statistics, from the sharp fall in the oil price, a strong pound and slowing external markets, manufacturing output since 2010 has expanded by 18.5%, and by 17% in Scotland. Quite contrary to the assertion of the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), there are more manufacturing jobs, too, than in 2010. There are 90,000 more of them in our economy today than in September 2010.
While we are about it, let us not miss an opportunity to celebrate the remarkable growth in motor vehicle manufacturing. The 6.4% increase over the past year underscores an historic transformation in that key industry’s fortunes which has been under way since 2010. The Government need no lessons from Opposition parties on manufacturing generally, given that, as many know, it suffered its fastest decline on record as a share of GDP under Labour.
Business investment is increasing too. It has been growing by well over 4% a year in real terms since 2010. Specifically, investment in research and development rose to £19.9 billion in 2014, well up on where it was in 2010. The record levels of support that the Government are providing for innovative businesses through our R and D tax credit are a big part of the reason for that. Our support rose from £1.1 billion in 2010 to £1.75 billion in 2013-14, and the tax credit is helping more than 18,000 businesses to engage in innovative R and D investment.
The hon. Member for Dundee East said that there was a missed opportunity for Scotland. I disagree; the evidence shows otherwise. The hon. Gentleman should, perhaps, note that there were 1,045 successful claims for R and D tax credit from Scottish businesses in 2013-14. He should also recall that the five parties in the Smith commission agreed that corporation tax and its associated reliefs should not be devolved, on the basis of a strong body of evidence that such a move would not be in Scotland’s interests. It was striking that neither Opposition party joined businesses in welcoming our plan to cut corporation tax to 18% by 2020. Companies throughout the United Kingdom will benefit from that, just as they are benefiting now from our R and D tax credit.
The hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) mentioned the important issue of equality. We are active in that respect as well. There are more women in work than ever before—a record 14.6 million—and the number has risen by nearly 1 million since 2010. We are also taking steps to eliminate the remaining gender pay gap through new transparency requirements, and, as part of our broader goal of achieving full employment in our economy, we recently set out our aim of halving the disability employment gap. This is not the uncaring, uncompassionate Government that the Opposition parties seek to portray.
Let me say something about the business environment. As part of our economic plan, we want to make Britain the best place in Europe in which to do business, with a business environment that supports investment, productivity, growth and job creation. When Labour was in government, corporation tax stood at 28% and national insurance was set to increase, which would have had a devastating impact on jobs. By contrast, this Government have shelved the planned national insurance increase, increased investment allowances, and introduced the most competitive corporation tax regime in the G20. While we are about it, we are deregulating too, building on the steps that have been taken since 2010. We are committed to cutting the cost of red tape by a further £10 billion during the current Parliament. It is no surprise that Britain has just leapfrogged others in the World Bank’s global ease of doing business rankings to become the top country in the G7 in which to do business.
Let me now turn to another aspect of today’s debate: trade and exports. Our long-term economic plan will enable us to move towards an economy with a stronger export performance. While we are, of course, facing real global headwinds, including a slowdown in China and continued weakness in the eurozone, we are backing British businesses with global ambitions. The number of United Kingdom companies that are exporting is growing strongly—it has increased by 18% since 2010—and Scottish companies are also exporting more. In 2011 there were 9,300 Scottish exporters; now there are 11,100. Our trade deficit is responding, and narrowed in the three months to November.[Official Report, 27 January 2016, Vol. 605, c. 2MC.]
As Members have noted, our £1 trillion export goal is rightly ambitious, and much depends on factors that are out of our control. What we can do as a Government is offer effective support for exporters, and push for ambitious trade agreements that will help them to break into new markets. That is why the Government have recently established the cross-Government exports implementation taskforce to drive a new and tough whole-of-Government approach in support of our export target and our aim to increase by 100,000 the number of UK firms exporting by 2020. The Government are also pushing hard for ambitious trade deals that will remove tariff and non-tariff barriers facing British exporters and open up new markets.