Iain Wright
Main Page: Iain Wright (Labour - Hartlepool)Department Debates - View all Iain Wright's debates with the Department for Education
(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Vince Cable
Yes, it is a source of concern. We now have the benefits of a much more competitive exchange rate, and given the efforts that we are making to promote British exports and import competing industries, I would expect that deficit to narrow.
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
As the Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) have said, the UKTI strategy recognises the need
“to increase exports, especially to the high growth and emerging markets of the new global marketplace”.
Yet despite this objective, and as well as sterling’s dramatic weakening in recent months, which should help exports, the Bank of England has described export performance as “disappointing”, the OBR has described it as “weak”, and yesterday’s Budget revealed forecasts of net trade rising by a paltry 0.1% until 2017. Why are we not experiencing an export-led recovery, and what will the Secretary of State now do differently to boost exports?
Vince Cable
I would have thought it was fairly obvious that when there is an economic slump in the markets that constitute half our exports, it is rather difficult to expand into them, despite the competitive advantage that we have. There are deep structural problems. Many exporters genuinely have problems in getting access to bank finance or difficulties in getting access to trained workers. These are long-term structural problems that we inherited and are now trying to deal with.