Achieving Economic Growth

Debate between Simon Clarke and Geraint Davies

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

Some of it falls due as cash payments and some of it is rolled over. The reality is that, when we are running an £83 billion interest payment on an annualised basis, we will not be in a position to maintain market confidence unless we set out a sustainable trajectory to address it. A sustainable solution cannot be to borrow our way out of the situation; it must be to grow our economy and to create high-skilled, high-waged jobs, and we have a comprehensive plan to do so. That is the choice we have made as a Government and it is absolutely the right one.

[Geraint Davies]

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury mentioned that there are 500,000 more people on payrolls, but he neglected to say that that does not include self-employed people. Will he confirm that, according to the Office for National Statistics, there are, in fact, 444,000 fewer people in work than before the pandemic, not, as he implied, half a million more?

[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Clarke and Geraint Davies

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend has campaigned consistently on this theme. I would certainly be very happy to have further discussions with him about it. It is worth noting, and celebrating, the fact that the proportion of people who are in low-paid work is actually at its lowest since records began in 1997.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Trussell Trust finds that three out of four referrals are disabled people, and the Office for National Statistics finds that people who work online at home are more likely to work longer and not retire early, particularly if they are disabled. So will the Chancellor, the Treasury and the Minister look at the idea of promoting working from home after the pandemic, to help enable people with disabilities and other people to be more productive, and at the same time target more support for those in greatest need, as we have found from the Trussell Trust?

[Mr Clarke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and for the spirit in which he asks it. Over the course of the spending review we are investing £1 billion in disability-related programmes, and that is an aspect that I am happy to look at further. More broadly, the Government as a whole spend £58 billion a year on wider disability support, so we certainly take that area very seriously.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Simon Clarke and Geraint Davies

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

rose—

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—