Economic Growth

Debate between Geraint Davies and Ed Balls

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

We are not against the idea of referendums. We proposed the first referendum, in the 1970s. If there were a change in the balance of power in the treaties, we would support a referendum, but it would be wrong to do so now.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Ed Balls]

I will take one more intervention.

[Geraint Davies]

As my right hon. Friend knows, today’s figures show that unemployment has risen again. He also knows that the EU provides 50% of our trade. In the event of our securing a free trade agreement between the EU and the United States, alongside bilateral trading agreements between the EU and other countries such as China, what does he think the impact of withdrawal from the EU would be on growth, jobs and trade?

[Ed Balls]

In 1983, our party supported the idea of withdrawal from the European Community, as it was at the time, but the Conservative party and the Confederation of British Industry agreed that it would cost 2.5 million jobs. Our trade share with Europe has deepened since then, and our labour market is bigger. I think that upwards of 3 million to 3.5 million jobs would be lost now, because we would be turning our face away from those big markets around the world.

Jobs and Growth

Debate between Geraint Davies and Ed Balls

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

At last, a perceptive intervention from the right hon. Gentleman. I will come to that very issue later in my speech after making a few more points. I will deal with ensuring that getting demand moving is done in a safe, sustainable and careful way.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is no surprise that, if the Chancellor announces half a million job cuts in the public sector, those people will save rather than spend and that the people in the private sector, who normally sell things to them, contract and stop taking people on? It is no surprise that that very announcement underpins the lack of growth in our economy and puts the guilt on the Government side of the Chamber.

[Ed Balls]

I think that the Chancellor will regret talking down the British economy a year ago, because the rise in private sector jobs has been swamped by public sector job cuts. That is why employment is falling. That is why the private sector is not investing. That is why his corporation tax cut has had no impact on private sector investment. Will he repeat his claim made in January 2009 that

“quantitative easing is the last resort of desperate governments when all their other policies have failed”?

Those are prescient words, because we know the truth, and so do his increasingly desperate-looking supporters on the Government Benches.

Let me say what the Chancellor cannot admit: the private sector-led recovery he promised has proved to be a fantasy, as we predicted. In the past year, the growth that he predicted has failed to materialise.

The Economy

Debate between Geraint Davies and Ed Balls

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies).

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that one reason for the remarkable fact that the world economy is growing steadily while Britain is flatlining, is the report from UK Trade & Investment that says that although UK inward investors are coming forward to build factories and growth in Britain, they are not being drawn down as the RDAs have been abolished? The Government are destroying the engines of growth.

[Ed Balls]

I am sure that was one of the proposals in the so-called strategy in the Chancellor’s Budget.

As I have said, there is growing concern in the business community. There is even concern in the Conservative fraternity. As my friends on The Daily Telegraph said in a recent editorial:

“These figures should be giving George Osborne some sleepless nights.”

They should indeed be giving the Chancellor sleepless nights at No. 11.