Finance Bill — House of Commons, 2017-09-12
Topic: Macroeconomics
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Half of young people in Greece are unemployed, and that is after a significant number of other young people have come to countries such as the United Kingdom and Germany to work. I must say that that is not a sustainable economic model. I suspect there is going to have to be a shake-up in the eurozone at some point—more fiscal transfers, or looking at the currency—because it is not sustainable for half of a country’s young people to remain unemployed for a considerable period Thankfully, we have not had to confront such a problem in our country—we have a different set of challenges—but my right hon. Friend is right about productivity. Let us look at the Bank of England analysis. He has already referred to falling productivity in the oil and gas sector and the financial sector. As I have said, there has been the impact of the financial crisis on allocating capital. I think there is now enough capital in the economy, but the issue is about getting it to the right businesses. There has also been a slowing rate of growth in innovation and discovery, as well as some inaccuracies in the data There is no single thing that we can do, which is why I am very pleased that the Government have set out a range of options in the productivity plan published by the previous Chancellor, George Osborne, in his Budget immediately after the general election in 2015, and in the measures set out by my right hon. Friend the present Chancellor, who was in the Chamber earlier. In relation to the national productivity investment fund, the Chancellor has set out some very important areas of spending, which I will briefly mention The first area is accelerating the housing supply, which is absolutely critical. I share the concerns expressed by Opposition Members. It is absolutely critical that we look at growing the housing supply urgently so that younger people, and not only younger people, can find affordable houses for them either to rent or to aspire to buy. A very significant sum in the national productivity investment fund will go towards that incredibly important area. The second area is investment in transport. I welcome today’s announcement about the very significant investment in the A303 and the significant amount of money to ensure that we properly protect the ancient monument of Stonehenge. That is very important for me and colleagues from south-west England. We are also seeing improvements to rail, and to the missing link on the A417—the bit of the road that is not dualled—in which the Government are committed to investing. Therefore, there is investment in some important areas of transport I also welcome the conversations that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport is having with colleagues in the north of England about significant investment that we could make on top of HS2 to connect cities in the north properly. My understanding is that if we see an agreed plan from Transport for the North, the Government will be very keen to fund that to drive productivity growth in the north of England, in the same way that significant investments in road infrastructure have driven productivity growth in London and the south of England It is important that we invest in other transport infra- structure such as airport connectivity. Particularly in the light of our leaving the European Union, Britain needs to be able to join up with global markets all around the world. I am particularly keen, as a south-west MP, for the Government to move forward on the Heathrow option and install that extra capacity so that businesses in my constituency, the south-west of England and elsewhere can be joined up properly with the rest of the world.