Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Stephen Metcalfe

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

6. What steps she is taking to support the development of technology in developing countries.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Harriett Baldwin)]

Our investments in technologies are saving and changing lives all over the world. Half of DFID’s £397 million annual research budget is focused on new technologies in developing countries in the health, agriculture, climate, clean energy, water, education and humanitarian response sectors.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Over the years, I have been fortunate to see at first hand how some of our aid budget has helped to develop technologies and engineer solutions that have changed people’s lives around the world. Can the Minister tell the House, however, whether any of the technologies that have been invented using our aid budget have been of direct benefit to people here in the UK?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I welcome the interest of the former Chair of the Science and Technology Committee in this important work and commend the Committee to hear from the team involved, because there are a range of different examples. Diseases know no boundaries, and the UK’s development of a test for TB is a good example.

Women and the Cost of Living

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Stephen Metcalfe

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), a former colleague on the Work and Pensions Committee, who is one of the most diligent attendees in the Chamber. However, I shall disagree vehemently with her and demolish a number of the arguments that are inherent in today’s motion. I urge all hon. Members to vote against it at 7 o’clock.

I shall start with some of the macroeconomic arguments and make the case that the way to destroy a country’s wealth, and to plunge people into many years of poverty, is to do what the previous Government did to the economy—create the largest recession for 60 years and the most significant banking crisis ever. I shall also outline the course of policy to follow for economic prosperity.

The secret of economic prosperity is not hard to find, but it is hard to achieve. The first ingredient is obviously a strong central bank maintaining sound monetary policy and a prudent Chancellor who maintains sound public finances. That is the framework that provides the environment in which businesses can invest, grow, export and create jobs. It is not politicians who create that wealth and those jobs, but we can damage the cost of living and the growth of businesses with bad monetary policies, high taxes, irresponsible borrowing, excessive regulation and the high interest rates that we saw under the previous Government.

The decision to make the Bank of England independent in 1997 was just about the only decision made by the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) with which I agreed. The mandate to keep inflation at 2% has meant some predictability and stability from the inflationary ravages that we all remember from the Labour Governments of the 1970s. It is essential that the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, is able to unwind the current additional monetary stimulus that has been needed since the crash of 2008 without allowing any major deviation from that 2% target. Sound money will mean that the pound stays strong. Given the UK’s dependence on imported goods and fuel, a strong pound keeps our cost of living down.

The Government also need to play a part. The Chancellor has taken the tough and necessary steps to bring the public finances back into structural balance.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

My hon. Friend talks about the Chancellor making tough decisions. Do you think it would be right to abandon the programme that we have adopted and to increase the amount of borrowing? Do you think that would be the right way for the country to move forward?

[Harriett Baldwin]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not think anything about these matters, although I am sure that the hon. Lady does.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I apologise, Mr Speaker.

[Harriett Baldwin]

Some Opposition Members think that the Chancellor has tightened too fast, but others might argue that he could have tightened faster. I say that he has been a Goldilocks Chancellor, and this has been a tightening at the pace at which job creation has been allowed to flourish. I also want to put on record that there has been no recession in this country since 2009. At all points in this fiscal responsibility, the Chancellor has looked for measures that have helped hard-working families keep their cost of living under control. He has helped councils freeze their council tax, he has raised the tax-free threshold for working people and he has avoided the 13p fuel duty increase that Labour had planned—