UK Parliament / Open data

Finance (No.2) Bill

No. We heard from the hon. Gentleman earlier.

The last Labour Government ignored the benefit of expanding trade. Exports came up in the discussion. This Government have gone out of their way to expand overseas trade. The Chancellor is in Brazil this week at the beginning of export week. We are doing everything right to sell Britain overseas, and to encourage overseas companies to come here and benefit from the low rate of corporation tax, which Labour wants to destroy.

Putting up corporation tax does nothing to help small business, contrary to what Labour says in its shallow and feeble amendment. That only goes to demonstrate that the Opposition have no plan to expand our economy or create more jobs, growth and prosperity—creating those things is exactly the right approach that the Government are taking.

Amendment 2, which I obviously do not support, is completely irrelevant to the wider national debate currently, which is about sustaining growth in our economy, and

expanding our economy with jobs, growth, prosperity, inward investment and exports. On that point, I heard a terrible diatribe earlier—an hon. Member said we are not exporting enough. In my county of Essex, the Essex chamber of commerce has helped more than 1,000 local firms, including many small and medium-sized businesses, in processing export documents and giving practical assistance. The value of those exports is well over £300 million. That is the message we want to send out to business of all sizes in the UK. I have no intention of supporting the amendment and support what the Government are doing.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
579 cc158-9 
Session
2013-14
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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