Industry (Government Support)

I beg to move,"That this House notes the need for a clear deficit reduction plan, and that such a plan must have at its heart measures to foster growth and create the conditions for a strong business-led recovery; believes Government has a crucial role to play in fostering economic growth and in creating a better-balanced economy; supports strategic decisions to back key sectors such as digital, life sciences, low carbon manufacturing and civil nuclear power; congratulates the previous Government for supporting businesses through the downturn and laying the foundations for the UK to be globally competitive as the country makes the transition to a low carbon economy; expresses serious concern that the Government's decisions risk removing key support for business and industry at a critical moment in the economic cycle; further believes that cutting investment allowances will pull away vital support for manufacturers seeking to invest and grow; further notes that the Government's scaling back of the regional development agencies at a time when recovery is fragile will impact on investment vital for regional economies; and regrets the coalition Government's decision to place a question mark over a number of vital industrial support decisions taken by the previous Government." Let me make it clear at the beginning of the debate what I said during our initial exchanges at oral questions a couple of weeks ago—deficit reduction is important and I do not say that every decision to reduce expenditure is wrong. The Secretary of State and I both fought the recent election on policies to reduce the deficit. But the Opposition believe that this must be done in a way that supports economic growth, and not in a way that undermines it. It is critical to our future that fiscal consolidation is done in a way that supports rather than undermines growth. On the timing of deficit reduction, I am still saying what the Secretary of State and I were both saying back at the time of the election, but he is now saying something very different. Just a week before polling day he said that""it would be foolish to rush into significant cuts now which take the economy down even further, which lead to an even bigger deficit problem"." Yet just days later, the Secretary of State was signing up to his part of £6 billion of cuts in this financial year—cuts that mean 10,000 fewer students going to university than under the published plans, and £300 million being taken out of the regional development agencies this year.