Oral Answers to Questions

William Bain Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The House is in a very excitable state, and it is not even lunchtime yet. Members must calm down and compose themselves.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

12. What assessment he has made of the effects on job creation in Scotland of the employer’s national insurance holiday scheme.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)]

As of 7 September 2011, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has received 922 successful applications for the national insurance holiday scheme from new businesses located in Scotland. Of the 396 applications received for the 2010-11 financial year, 386 claimed the national insurance contributions holiday, supporting approximately 1,300 new jobs.

[Mr Bain]

Should not the Minister be lobbying the Chancellor to create a proper strategy for growth for Scottish manufacturing and construction, instead of offering such complacent support for a scheme that has created less than 10% of the jobs that were forecast and that has been described by the Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland as badly designed and failing to deliver at a time when the country needs the creation of new jobs?

[David Mundell]

We will certainly not be taking any lectures on national insurance from Labour, a party that sought to introduce a jobs tax in 2009. [Interruption.] I had the benefit of visiting the hon. Gentleman’s constituency last week, and I would have thought that he welcomed the fact that these jobs that did not exist before and that they have a better chance of becoming permanent with the NIC holiday—[Interruption.]