Business of the House

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He will know that the Government are taking steps to help small businesses by, for example, requiring that a certain percentage of contracts be put out to be bid for by small and medium-sized businesses. On whether there should be a statutory requirement to settle a bill within a finite number of days, the House has discussed this issue and has so far resisted legislating on it. However, I shall certainly draw his concerns to the attention of my colleagues at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to see whether this is an issue that we might reconsider.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Yesterday the coalition Government announced huge projected increases in unemployment. How high will unemployment have to rise before the Government change their economic strategy? Can we have a statement please?

[Sir George Young]

I am not aware of any forecast increases in unemployment. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the figures that the Office for Budget Responsibility published after we made clear our intention to tackle the deficit and take £83 billion out, he will see that for every year in the coming four years, it predicted a fall in unemployment and a rise in employment. In the second quarter of this year about 300,000 jobs were created, so we need to put all that in a slightly different context.