Economic Update

Jacob Young Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I will let this Government’s record on economic policy speak for itself. It is a record of which I am proud. I can provide the hon. Gentleman with the reassurance that I and the Government remain committed to tackling fraud wherever we see it. He mentioned the figure of £4.9 billion. As I said to the House in oral questions on Tuesday, that estimate has already been reduced by a third—by £1.6 billion—because of the actions that we are taking. I will not go into them all now, but he should know that we will go after everyone wherever we can to recover that money for the taxpayer, and I am confident that we will do a very good job.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

This is a targeted package that helps those just about managing, which is entirely right. The last Labour Government closed six nuclear power stations and had a policy of no new nuclear. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, alongside these measures to help people in the short term, it is imperative that we invest in our long-term energy security—in domestic gas production, in renewables, and, crucially, in new nuclear?

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about some of the failures of policy that the Labour party propagated in power. That is being fixed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. We are investing not just in new nuclear, as he said, with billions of pounds at the spending review, but in offshore wind, and—as he knows in his part of the world—carbon capture and storage and hydrogen, where Teesside is playing a starring role in that green energy revolution.