Oral Answers to Questions

Gavin Williamson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)]

11. What fiscal steps he is taking to encourage job creation in the private sector.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)]

We are making businesses more competitive by cutting business taxes, helping work pay by increasing the personal allowance and introducing universal credit, and helping unemployed people into work through our Work programme and work experience.

[Mr Osborne]

I will not pre-empt any Budget announcements, but I will say that we have extended small business rate relief to 2013. We announced that in November, and it will help more than half a million small businesses, and we have also introduced a deferral scheme to help larger businesses with their cash flow, so we are doing other things as well as reducing corporation tax—a further reduction in corporation tax is planned for April, of course—and cutting the small companies tax rate, which was due to go up under the previous Labour Government.

[Gavin Williamson]

The recent changes in research and development tax credits will provide a major boost for hi-tech manufacturing businesses based in my constituency and near it, such as Moog and Goodrich. What more can my right hon. Friend do to help generate more high-skilled, well-paid jobs in the manufacturing sector?

[Mr Osborne]

I have been very encouraged to hear about the success of companies in my hon. Friend’s constituency, including the two that he mentioned. We will provide further details later this year on the R and D “above the line” tax credit, on which we have listened to representations from industry and Members of Parliament. In the vicinity of my hon. Friend’s constituency, we also have the enterprise zone i54, which will start up in April. More generally, this is a week when 20,000 new jobs have been announced by Tesco and we have heard the great news that Nissan will produce a new car in the UK. There are some encouraging developments in the British economy.