The Economy

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I could not tell whether the hon. Gentleman agrees with the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford that the Labour party is the anti-worker party—but we will find out.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Osborne]

Actually, I would much rather give way to the new Member for Taunton.

[Rebecca Pow]

This Government are committed to infrastructure investment to benefit business. As my right hon. Friend said earlier, the Labour party, in its manifesto, was going to axe the upgrade of the A358, not realising that linked to that upgrade is the development of a new IT business park in Taunton on which depend many jobs and the future of our economy. The Conservative party understands that this is to benefit business; clearly the Labour party does not.

[Mr Osborne]

It is fantastic to see my hon. Friend here representing Taunton. She has already made an impact and made sure that the A358 is absolutely in the Government’s road programme. For all that we heard from the shadow Chancellor about investment and the like, the Labour party announced during the general election that it was cancelling the A358, and indeed the A20, which showed that it did not care about the south of England at all, or about investment in the south-west of England. That is pretty astonishing.