Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between William Bain and Matt Hancock

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

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

4. What estimate he has made of the contribution net trade will make to GDP over the next four years.

[The Minister for Business and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)]

Our goal is for exports to reach £1trillion by 2020.

[Mr Bain]

I am grateful for the Minister’s answer, but last month the Office for National Statistics said that exports had remained largely flat for the past four years, and the Office for Budget Responsibility and the British Chambers of Commerce both downgraded their forecasts for net trade this year, so can he confirm that with this failure on economic rebalancing, his targets for Britain to double our exports to £1 trillion by 2020 and to get 100,000 more firms exporting from Britain will be missed?

[Matthew Hancock]

It is a pity to hear the Opposition setting their face against the desire to double exports to £1 trillion. Of course, the eurozone on our border is in deflation and has had a series of recessions over the past four and a half years. Over the past three months our trade deficit has narrowed, so things are improving. This is undoubtedly hard work, but it is hard work that we will pursue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between William Bain and Matt Hancock

Thursday 18th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

The Opposition have an extraordinary contradiction at the heart of their questions. The Prime Minister is clear that onshore wind should not be subsidised because increasingly it is a value-for-money proposition. The idea that we should subsidise more heavily something that is increasingly approaching grid parity seems bizarre, and the idea that that should be done without proper planning consideration is bonkers.

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

13. What recent assessment he has made of the UK’s energy security.

National Minimum Wage

Debate between William Bain and Matt Hancock

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

I am certainly suggesting that we had one of the deepest recessions in the world because of the failure of the last Labour Government to regulate the banks properly and to mend the public finances in the run-up to the recession. That youth unemployment had risen by 40% even before the crash shows the failure of Labour’s economic policy. That is a theme to which I shall warm in my speech.

[Mr Bain]

On the future, the Minister’s close colleague the Chancellor promised that the national minimum wage would reach £7 an hour. When will the Government make good on that promise?

[Matthew Hancock]

I will come later to progress on raising the national minimum wage, but the central point, which Labour Members do not understand, is that we cannot have a strong national minimum wage without a strong economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bain]

On the issue of fairness, does the Minister agree that people should be treated equally under the minimum wage legislation? Will he take this opportunity personally to disown the distasteful comments made by his ministerial colleague, Lord Freud—that some disabled people were not worth the full rate? Is that not an outrage; should not the Government apologise?

[Matthew Hancock]

Yes, of course, everybody who is in work should be paid the minimum wage.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between William Bain and Matt Hancock

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

The problems of people failing either to make prompt payments or to honour payment terms—two related, but slightly different points—need to be addressed. They are largely problems that negatively affect small companies, and we are currently consulting on how radical we need to be to get the balance right and address them.

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

T7. Will the Secretary of State confirm that business investment has flatlined over the last year and that this is one of the major causes of Britain’s worsening productivity problem? What are he and the Government going to do about it?

Low Pay

Debate between William Bain and Matt Hancock

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) for securing the debate and giving us the opportunity for discussion. I have listened carefully to his arguments, which were passionately put. As he said, there is a strong cross-party consensus behind the minimum wage and the institution of the Low Pay Commission, which advises the Government on the appropriate rate. Interestingly, more Government Members than Opposition Members are in the Chamber, which demonstrates the cross-party support for the minimum wage and a commitment not only to it, but to its effective enforcement. We are absolutely clear that anyone entitled to be paid the minimum wage should receive it.

Before I answer some of the points made and set out what the Government are planning to do, I want to give some statistics in response to the hon. Gentleman. Times are undoubtedly tough following the great recession of 2008 to 2009, but since then the bottom quintile or fifth of the population have become around 6% better off, in part because of measures taken by the Government. Overall, household disposable incomes have risen in the past year and in the past quarter.

Specific actions taken by the coalition Government include freezing council tax; freezing and then cutting fuel duty; introducing the apprenticeship minimum wage, which did not exist before, in 2010; cutting beer duty; and of course raising the tax threshold, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman). The tax bill of people working full time on the minimum wage has been cut in half.

Government Members would argue that the best route out of poverty is work, with benefit and education reform and, as the hon. Member for Glasgow North East mentioned, an enhancement of skills. That is vital in the long term, but we have been able to take some shorter-term fiscal measures to support people’s disposable incomes—after tax—even in difficult times.

The hon. Gentleman also discussed universal credit and tax credits. Tax credits have the disadvantage of the withdrawal rate and the increase in marginal effective taxes. However, universal credit will ensure that work always pays, so it and a consistent withdrawal rate will be part of the solution to poverty. We want to ensure that incentives are right to support people who get on and work hard.

[Mr Bain]

How do the Government respond to the research produced today by Gingerbread? Given the new way in which universal credit will work—assessed on after-tax income—what lone parents get through the tax system they will in effect lose through universal credit. Frankly, will that not make it difficult for the Government to make good the pledge of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, that work will pay for every hour that people work?

[Matthew Hancock]

Absolutely; it is vital that work always pays for every hour, and that is why having a consistent withdrawal rate in universal credit matters. It is valuable that this debate is not particularly partisan, but I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the fact that, with tax credits as they were, withdrawal rates were sometimes more than 100%, so in some cases—not in large numbers—people were taking home less when they worked harder. Universal credit will put an end to that, which should be welcomed in all parts of the House.

Apprenticeships

Debate between William Bain and Matt Hancock

Thursday 14th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

We are making it as simple as possible. I studied at West Cheshire college in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Colleges and other providers can help small businesses to bust some of the bureaucracy, but I want to bust some of the bureaucracy myself to make it easier.

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

Increasing skill levels will be among the critical long-term policies for turning around the slump in living standards, which is worsening under this Government. Will the Minister learn more from the German approach, in which larger companies receive stronger encouragement and have greater obligations to take on apprentices than is the case in the UK?

[Matthew Hancock]

I certainly agree that ensuring that everyone reaches their potential through apprenticeships and increased skills is vital. An apprenticeship involves learning and doing a job, and encouraging companies to come to the table is vital if we are to make this happen. Through the reforms and the principles set out in the Richard report, to which we have responded today, that is exactly the direction we want to take.

A11 (Dualling)

Debate between William Bain and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Bain]

As ever, the timing of my noble Friend Lord Adonis was impeccable. He will have made that decision having weighed up all the factors, in his inimitable style.

Other transport capital investment is contributing to economic recovery in East Anglia. Rail freight contributes £870 million to the UK economy each year, and Network Rail’s decision to upgrade the line between Felixstowe and Nuneaton via Ipswich, Ely and Peterborough will help the rail freight industry in East Anglia in particular, potentially taking 750,000 lorries off the roads in the UK and on to rail by 2030.

I am pleased to see the Under-Secretary of State in his place. During the election campaign there was quite a tough war over the A11 dualling between his right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for Transport and his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker). The coalition agreement makes 12 commitments on transport issues, but none relates to the £6 billion plan for roads investment which the Government inherited from their predecessors.

I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity today to affirm the Government’s support for necessary improvements to our roads network, of which the completion of the A11 dualling is a key part, and to make it clear that the Liberal Democrat pre-election policy of cuts in new roads investment has been repudiated. More widely, can he outline what his Department’s criteria are in its value-for-money analysis of transport capital projects? Can he indicate which criteria, in his view, the completion of the A11 dualling would fulfil?

My broader point, which was referred to by the hon. Member for West Suffolk, is that countries that have attempted a programme of fiscal consolidation remotely resembling that being pursued by the Government have seen transport as an easy target. Canada in the mid-1990s is a case in point, where spending was slashed by 50%. That must not happen in the comprehensive spending review and in the programme of fiscal consolidation.

[Matthew Hancock]

I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman accepts that the Government of whom he was a part failed to invest in infrastructure enough. It is good of him to admit that. Therefore, does he agree that not reducing capital spending in the Budget was the correct decision? Given his citation of the economic literature, does he commend that decision by the Chancellor?

[Mr Bain]

The point made in the Crafts article, and in a number of studies, is that Governments—both Labour and Conservative—over decades have not invested enough in transport. I hope that that is borne in mind in the comprehensive spending review.

Am I content that the Chancellor has not cut capital investment further? Absolutely. We shall see what happens on 20 October, but transport has a strong case for needing additional capital investment, not least in projects such as the completion of Thameslink and high-speed rail, on the benefits of which I have spoken in previous Westminster Hall debates.

I hope that the Minister will show today that he and the Secretary of State are prepared to fight for investment in our roads, buses and trains, and do not simply see their budget as one which is ripe for pruning by the Chancellor. I pay tribute to the contributions made by other hon. Members and hope that the Minister will have good news for the people of Norfolk and Suffolk.