Achieving Economic Growth

Debate between Mark Pawsey and Simon Clarke

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

There are half a million more people on payrolls, and I was very clear about that. The headline unemployment rate is 3.7%, which we should celebrate. It is a genuine public policy success and contrasts starkly with the situation we inherited in 2010. I, certainly, am determined to continue supporting it by making sure our economic policy is the right one.

The Labour party has only one answer to every problem: spending more. It has made, by our calculations, £418 billion-worth of spending commitments, while setting out precisely how £8 billion would be funded. The scale of spending that Labour would undertake is vast, but what concerns me, and should concern us all, is the lack of seriousness with which Labour considers how to fund its commitments. That is the luxury of being in opposition, whereas in government there is no ducking away from the big challenges with which we are grappling.

Achieving economic growth is not as simple as putting one’s foot down on the accelerator. It is a far subtler and more balanced enterprise that includes multiple carefully weighed decisions that are designed to mutually reinforce each other over time.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Does the Chief Secretary to the Treasury agree that the private sector is our economy’s engine of growth? Businesses are getting up, working hard and developing the growth, jobs and prosperity this country needs. We cannot rely on the state to do everything. Private businesses must be supported.

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. He is always a fantastic advocate for the car industry in his part of the midlands. We need to make sure that the engine of growth is able to fire, and our plan for growth, published last year, sets out how we will increase investment in the three pillars of growth: infrastructure, skills and innovation.