Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Michael Fabricant

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I did look into the issue, and I do not want to give the hon. Gentleman an inaccurate answer so I will go and check on the action taken after that meeting and see what I can tell him.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

Q3. In a speech last week the director general of MI5 identified a number of important gaps in its surveillance which need to be addressed in law. Some have called that a breach of civil liberties, and others have said that it is just another snoopers charter, but does the Prime Minister agree that public safety must come above everything else and that civil liberty must include not being bombed, shot or beheaded by some deranged jihadist?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Michael Fabricant

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I want to do everything I can to support economic recovery in Wales. That is why, for instance, I think that in September, when the NATO conference comes to Wales—entirely an initiative launched by me—there will be a very strong welcome in the valleys. That will be the first time a serving American President has ever been to Wales, so I am looking forward to it. We are doing everything we can to help businesses in Wales to employ more people and grow the economy.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

Q14. If he will meet the chair of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull local enterprise partnership to discuss economic development in Birmingham and Lichfield district; and if he will make a statement.

[The Prime Minister]

I met the chair of the LEP board on Monday when I hosted a meeting in Birmingham to mark the agreement of the growth deal that will see over £350 million invested in Greater Birmingham and Solihull. The projects in the deal will help to create up to 19,000 jobs, allow up to 6,000 homes to be built and generate up to £110 million from local partners and private investment.

[Michael Fabricant]

With unemployment at just 1.5% in Lichfield and Burntwood, and down by over 28,000 across the whole LEP region, does that not demonstrate that the LEP model, bolstered by the growth funds awarded on Monday, is working? How does my right hon. Friend plan to build on that success and encourage the most ambitious LEPs, including Greater Birmingham and Solihull, to promote the local economy still further?

[The Prime Minister]

As I said at the meeting with the LEP, I think that the growth deal is a very big step forward for Birmingham and the west midlands. It will result in more jobs, more investment and more houses. It will see new railway stations and transport links built. I think that we need to be more ambitious about the money we can find in central Government to support these schemes, but I also hope that local councils, including Birmingham city council, will look at every piece of unused brownfield land and every extra bit of development they can put on the table so that these growth deals get ever more ambitious.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Michael Fabricant

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As the hon. Lady knows, I am a fan of directly elected mayors. However, the people of Birmingham had their chance to make that decision and they voted not to have a mayor. I hope that people will see successful mayors in London, Liverpool, Bristol and other parts of the country, and see that there are benefits from that approach. I agree with her that, even if we do not move to a mayoral system, there is more that we can do through city deals, local enterprise partnerships and devolving some of the funding in Whitehall further down towards cities and regions. All that would be to the good. It is worth while and welcome that in its policy review, her party has decided not to tear up local enterprise partnerships, but to extend them. It is good that there is cross-party agreement on how to drive devolution out to our great cities around the country.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

Q13. On behalf of my Burntwood constituents, may I thank the Prime Minister for his swift and effective action in giving what is, in effect, a posthumous honour to my constituent Stephen Sutton? With the economic plan now working well, how can we build on that and on the legacy that Stephen Sutton set for charitable giving?

[The Prime Minister]

Stephen was an absolutely inspiring individual, and his zest for life, even as he was suffering from a very difficult and progressive cancer, was completely extraordinary and very inspiring. He raised a huge amount of money for teenage cancer services, and he raised it from right around the world as well as the UK. I think it is right that our honours system properly rewards people who give to charity, and who give of their time, from the very bottom to the very top. There is probably more we can do to make sure that our honours system really reflects what the British public want, which is to see giving, generosity and compassion rewarded.

G7

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Michael Fabricant

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. There are always concerns from people who see free trade as a zero-sum game: there must be a loser, there must be a winner, and somehow there will be a hollowing out of middle-class, middle-income jobs in our world. I do not believe that is the case. Britain has a lot of goods and services that the world wants to buy, and arguably a lot of those—particularly things such as intellectual property, patent protected services, and financial, banking and insurance services—require a greater opening of other markets to get in there, perhaps more so than just manufacturing and selling a particular good. It is really important for our whole future and prosperity that those deals go ahead.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

The Prime Minister will know that manufacturing output, which he has just been talking about, is up 4.5% this month on the same time last year. He may not know, however, that the west midlands is the only region in the United Kingdom—and one of very few regions in Europe—that has a balance of payments surplus with China. My question follows that of the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) on the BRIC countries: what discussions did the Prime Minister have at the G7 to ensure that there will not be dumping of manufactured products from those countries, and that we continue to see long-term economic success?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has made his point, and at rather too great a length I am afraid.

European Council

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Michael Fabricant

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend asks a good question. Because of the success of the European Central Bank in calming the markets, there is perhaps less pressure on the eurozone countries to take the steps that many analysts believe they need to take. The reason why I think it will take time is that these are difficult issues for sovereign countries. As I have said, one issue that was discussed only in outline form at the Council was the idea of contracts between Governments and the European Commission. I do not know how such contracts will go down in other European countries, but I suspect that they would go down rather badly if we proposed them here. These are difficult issues that it will take time to discuss. We need to think about that as we calibrate our response.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

Anders Borg, the Swedish Finance Minister, said that when the financial transaction tax was introduced in Sweden,

“between 90%-99% of traders in bonds, equities and derivatives moved out of Stockholm to London”.

What steps has the Prime Minister taken to ensure that we do not find that such a tax is imposed in the UK, which is what the Labour party wants, and that our traders do not all go to New York and Zurich?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Anders Borg is an excellent Finance Minister. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and I work very closely with him. I believe that if a financial transactions tax is not introduced simultaneously around the world, the transactions will just go to the lowest-cost destinations. That is why it is totally self-defeating. The European Commission’s own piece of work on such a tax showed that it would cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and millions of pounds of revenue, not just in the UK, which has a large financial services industry, but in the rest of Europe.

European Council

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Michael Fabricant

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The figures I read out are the correct ones—€83.5 billion in the last period and a proposal for more than €108 billion in the last negotiating box. I can reassure him that the like-minded group of countries that came together to argue for further tens of billions of cuts in this proposal were looking for only a very small reduction in that heading in the European budget. We can get down to the sort of figures we need without fundamentally changing that budget heading.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will know that I am rather keen on pacts. Does he recall that Opposition Front Benchers said that he would be in utter isolation when he went to negotiate in Europe? Does he agree with me that working with other countries, such as the five that he has mentioned, actually delivers results for the British taxpayer?

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. He is completely right to talk about the importance of working with other countries. I commend him on all the very good joint working that he managed to do in encouraging colleagues to go and campaign in the Corby by-election.