Business of the House

Tom Blenkinsop Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

My hon. Friend will welcome the announcement on Wednesday that 100,000 acres of publicly owned Government land will be made available for housing, providing not only much needed housing, but 25,000 jobs in the building sector. We are very anxious to increase the supply of housing and I hope that the initiative we announced yesterday will do exactly that.

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

Civitas produced a report last month indicating that, because of carbon floor pricing policy, more than 600,000 chemical workers’ jobs could be lost in the UK. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers recently published a report that surveyed 1,000 companies, only 12% of which indicated that they thought the Government’s programme to rebalance the economy was working. May we have a debate in the House on how the Government are rebalancing the economy?

[Sir George Young]

We have just had Business, Innovation and Skills questions, when those exact issues could have been raised with the Secretary of State. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was in his place at the time and sought to raise them, but if he was he will have heard about the Government’s initiatives to help the manufacturing sector of the economy and drive up employment, and I am sure that reference was made to initiatives such as the regional growth fund.