Mel Stride
Main Page: Mel Stride (Conservative - Central Devon)Department Debates - View all Mel Stride's debates with the HM Treasury
(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
My right hon. Friend’s plan for jobs is characteristically thoughtful, creative and bold, and I firmly welcome it. He has rightly said that we look to businesses to grow the jobs of the future, yet we know that many hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises will emerge from this crisis saddled with significant amounts of corporate debt, and we will look to them at that moment to be investing in jobs and growth, rather than being concerned about de-leveraging and shoring up their balance sheets. So may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he has given this particular issue specific thought, and if he has, what solutions he might have to bring to this House?
Rishi Sunak
I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s support, and thank him for that. I also thank him for the advice he has provided to me over the past few weeks and months. He is right to highlight the issue of leverage; it was good that, on coming into this crisis, levels of corporate indebtedness in the UK were the lowest for around a decade and ranked very favourably when compared with most OECD countries, but he is right that we want to make sure that that is not a drag on our recovery. I am currently looking at proposals from a range of people, including my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami), TheCityUK and others, and I look forward to discussing those with my right hon. Friend.