G20

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Of course there has to be a rebalancing of public sector and private sector jobs in our economy, and of course there are difficult circumstances faced by different parts of the country, but in the north-east we have seen the expansion of the Nissan plant, and we have the new Hitachi train plant going into the north-east as well. What we need to do as a country is to become more competitive—to start manufacturing and making things again, which will benefit all the regions of our country.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Would not France, among other countries, do rather more to help developing countries if it met its own UN target for international development, as we are doing, rather than exhorting those of us who are meeting our UN targets to sign up to a financial transactions tax?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend puts his finger on it. Some other countries are using the cover of a financial transactions tax to get off the fact that they have not met their targets for overseas development assistance. In all the figures that we bandy around about the financial transactions tax, it is worth bearing in mind the fact that around 80% of it would be raised from businesses in the United Kingdom. I am sometimes tempted to ask the French whether they would like a cheese tax.