Speaking in the Budget debate in the House of Commons, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown reinforces the importance of dealing with the deficit as early as possible and calls for more support for British companies exporting to India and China particularly.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con): It is a privilege to make my first speech in this Parliament and to do so from the Government Benches. May I congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your election? It is great to see you in the Chair. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) on a splendid maiden speech. He will obviously go on to represent his constituents with great poise and ability.

I should like to pay tribute to my new right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. Far from being the damascene conversion that Opposition Members have mentioned, his ability to meet the top officials in the Treasury and the Bank of England, study the evidence and conclude that he had been wrong in his assessment of how quickly we need to deal with the deficit shows a man of huge stature, to be honest. It is incredible that the shadow Chancellor, who must have been in possession of the same advice, came to a completely different conclusion.

Today's debate has been fairly predictable, and I am certain that if Opposition Members were true to themselves they would say that they know perfectly well that, if they had been elected-God forbid-as the Government of this country, they would have had to take some pretty severe measures to deal with the deficit that we have inherited. I pay tribute to the coalition Government, frankly, for being as brave as they have been. This is an austere and difficult Budget, and every person-rich or poor-in the country will take pain. There is no getting away from that.

Owen Smith: Does the hon. Gentleman think that the volte-face performed by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills reflects perhaps more on his inconsistency and shifting values, as opposed to the position adopted by Labour Front Benchers that has been consistent either side of the election?

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I rather wish that I had not given way for that intervention, but, frankly, it says more about the hon. Gentleman than about the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whom I regard as having the greater stature because of what he has done.

I am amazed that the shadow Chancellor can conclude that severe action did not need to be taken to deal with our deficit. If we had not begun to take such action, the international markets would have taken the lead. Spot interest rates and bond rates would rise sharply. The cost of financing the huge deficit that we inherited would rise substantially. Business failures would accelerate. Unemployment would rise. Ultimately, by not taking the action that we have taken, we would return to recession. I completely take the opposite view from that of Opposition Members, who have said that we do not need to deal with deficit in the way we have now done.

Those siren voices of the Opposition would have led us into greater trouble than we are in now. What we see from the Opposition is a legacy where the gap between the rich and the poor grew in their 13 years in government. I would be bitterly disappointed if the Government's actions do not lead to the economy being immeasurably stronger in five years' time. We can then start to reduce that gap and put money into poor communities, exactly as the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) wants us to do, so that we can start to benefit some of the poorest people in society.

It was a huge tribute to the Chancellor that he said time after time yesterday that he wanted to bring the bottom of this country nearer to the top, with some of the measures that underlie the Budget-for example, how he will deal with the state pension. Opposition Members had 13 years to deal with the state pension. More than 1 million pensioners had to go grovelling to the Government and to fill in huge forms to get pension credit. We have now promised that everyone will receive a pension increase linked to earnings, prices or 2.5%, whichever is higher. That is real promise. Pensioners can now look forward to receiving at least a 2.5% increase from 2011.

Angela Smith: I remind the hon. Gentleman that the Labour Government legislated to make the link between pensions and earnings possible in 2008, and that we were timetabled to introduce that in 2012. Will he confirm his Government's intention to pay the winter fuel allowance next year at the same level as we paid it to our pensioners last year?

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I remind the hon. Lady that the Labour party won the election in 1997. The Labour Government had between 1997 and 2008 to do something about that, but meanwhile more than 1 million pensioners had to go through means-testing and fill out huge forms to get pension credit. A considerable number did not want to claim the credit, because they were too proud to do so, and they therefore lived in poverty. In the first few weeks of this new Government, pensioners have got a better deal than at any point under the 13 years of the previous Labour Government.

Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Labour Government's 75p increase for pensioners a number of years ago, which was reduced to 50p after tax, was an insult not only to pensioners, but to the people of this country, which is supposed to be one of the modern countries of the world?

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Many pensioners have told me exactly that-that it was an insult-so I hope that we can move away from treating our elderly people in such a way. As I have said before in the House-I remember raising this point with the then right hon. Member for Sedgefield during Prime Minister's questions-the way in which a society treats its elderly people is a mark of that society's civilisation. I hope that we will treat our elderly people with respect.

In an excellent, sober speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) put his finger on an interesting yet under-mentioned aspect of our economic problems. It is demonstrated by the table on page 7 of the Red Book, which shows that private debt has doubled in the past 13 years. It is, of course, up to members of households to make their personal decisions, but it is also up to the Government of the day to regulate the totality of private debt. The level of private debt has become unsustainable, something on which I often chased the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) in Budget debates. As the Red Book shows, the savings ratio was lower by the end of the Labour Government than at any time since the 1950s. It is incumbent on any Government of the day not only to encourage savings, but to ensure that the savings culture exists in a stable regime in which inflation is not completely out of control. If we did not take the action outlined in the Budget, interest rates would rise, thus putting inflationary pressure on the economy.

Mark Durkan: Given the hon. Gentleman's concern to ensure that the Government always encourage a strong savings culture, what does he think will be the impact of removing child trust funds and abandoning the savings gateway?

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: No Government would willingly take such action, as my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross said. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor had to set out a host of tough choices yesterday, but I do not think that the Budget was ideological. The hon. Gentleman has to be honest with himself when he thinks about ways to deal with the deficit. We should not underestimate the scale of the problem. This year's public sector net borrowing requirement of £149 billion is almost the equivalent of the combined budget for health and education. The scale of the deficit explains why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor had to make really difficult and brave decisions, but by taking such action now, I hope that we will be able to return to a situation in which we can start to help some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society, which is what any responsible Government ought to be about.

We will get out of this mess by promoting growth in the private sector and rebalancing our economy. We need to get Britain innovating and making things, and to sell our goods and services to the rest of the world. All the calculations in the Budget are predicated on a rate of growth, and it is the private sector that will deliver that growth. By taking the right measures in the Budget and concentrating on the right things, we might be able to exceed the growth targets set out by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor yesterday. Labour Chancellors have been pretty bad at forecasting growth rates. My right hon. Friend, in line with the Office for Budget Responsibility, has given very prudent forecasts of growth rates. I sincerely hope that we will be able to exceed those forecasts.

Until the election, I served as the shadow Minister for international trade and development, and I know that the actions of the Chancellor in supporting exporters will be critical to how our country moves forward in the coming months and years. After all, in the years from 1996 to 2004, firms that were new to exporting achieved, on average, a 34% increase in productivity in their year of entry-the very fact of their going into exporting made them increase their productivity-and 60% of the UK's productivity growth was attributable to exporting firms. It is therefore welcome that the Chancellor mentioned exports twice in his speech yesterday.

UK Trade & Investment is the Government's arm that encourages exports and foreign direct investment. Its chief executive, Andrew Cahn, worked under seven different Trade Ministers in the previous Government. I hope that we will not have that revolving door in the present Government and that we will have consistency of Ministers, who will be able to look at our exports problem and achieve considerable improvement. In the years of Labour Government, UKTI's budget was cut consistently.

Manufacturing accounts for more than half of our country's exports. Labour Members will not like the figures I give, but they are absolutely true. In 1997, manufacturing employed 4.19 million people, but by December 2009, under Labour's stewardship, that number had fallen to only 2.592 million. In other words, there had been a significant decline in the number of people employed in the manufacturing sector. That happened despite the value of sterling falling 24% between July 2007 and the present day. Perhaps one of the most devastating of figures pertaining to the period of Labour stewardship is on our trade deficit in goods, which has increased from £3.1 billion to more than £21 billion.

If Labour Members want to know the reason why we had our longest and deepest recession of our post-war history, it is that the Labour Government failed to support sectors of our economy that provide sustainable economic growth. If we are to exit the grips of recession, cushion the impact of austerity and have a sustainable future, exporters will be the engine room and will need to be given priority in the Chancellor's thoughts and, indeed, across all Departments.

In his Budget statement, the Chancellor said that departmental budgets will be set out in the spending review later this year-quite rightly, he set a date for that of 20 October-with an average real reduction for unprotected Departments of 20%. Let me say to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary, who is on the Treasury Bench, that UKTI-our trade promotion body-is a rare thing: it is one of the few parts of Government that actually makes this country money. To meet the challenges of the future, to provide adequate support for our exporters and to attract FDI into this country, its budget must be protected, so that it can continue to support private sector growth and job creation in the UK.

We must also recognise that real reforms are needed to how we support our exporters and attract FDI to adapt to an ever-changing global marketplace. Those changes cannot be made without the correct budgetary support for UKTI, but the rewards for successful implementation are there. We appreciate the opportunities presented to us by having Europe on our doorstep and through our close relationship with north America. Currently, 70% of our exports go to the traditional developed markets of north America and the EU, but the financial support available for firms seeking to export to the wider and increasingly accessible world beyond that must be maintained, because estimates suggest that, by 2020, the EU and USA share of global gross domestic product will have declined to less than 40%. As was correctly identified-I tried to intervene on the shadow Chancellor-we have turbulence in our European markets and EU growth is expected to be sluggish for some time. That is why it is important that we pay due attention to rapidly expanding global markets elsewhere, which cost proportionately more to service than the easier markets of Europe and north America.

We must be proactive, not reactive. British firms must be backed to head for the second-tier cities in larger markets such as India and China. They must also look for unrealised potential in other countries first, before our competitors have won all the contracts. I looked at that problem around the world, and I found country after country where there was huge potential. The British were welcomed, our business men went out there and expressed interest, but somehow it was the Japanese, the Germans, the Americans and the Chinese who popped in and got the contracts. We must provide better support for our companies.

We must benchmark the performance of UKTI against the best of other countries, so that our trade efforts match or exceed those of our competitors. With our overseas network of embassies, we have a fantastic platform for developing British business, and we cannot afford to let departmental cuts affect their work. We need a widely respected senior figure-a FTSE ex-chairman -to go out banging the drum for the UK, selling the country around the world, and consistently to visit those markets to build up contracts.

Nationally, we must concentrate our efforts away from the regional structure introduced by the previous Government. What nonsense that was. Different regional assemblies had offices in the same city, such as Shanghai or Mumbai, all competing with one another for the same business. What a waste of taxpayers' money, and what confusion it caused to those countries in which they were located.

Claire Perry: I am interested in my hon. Friend's important proposal for a roving ambassador for British business. Does he agree that there might be potential to retread Sir Digby Jones in that role, particularly as he said yesterday after the Budget:



Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I know that she was upbraided by Mr Deputy Speaker a little while ago-it takes a long time to sort out parliamentary language, and references to "you" and the "hon. Gentleman". She is absolutely right. I was modelling my remarks exactly on Digby Jones, who did a huge amount of work for this country, and spent an enormous amount of time travelling around the world. He had great, in-depth knowledge of huge sections of industry, having served as chairman of the CBI. We need to appoint someone of that calibre, who has the time, energy and availability to be able to do precisely that job.

As I said, the notion that RDAs should have offices around the world competing with one another led to a huge dilution of the UK brand. It caused confusion in the country in which they were located, and it did not serve our interests of attracting foreign direct investment to this country. I have no doubt that Ministers will abolish that structure rapidly, thereby producing much better results. I welcome the proposals for local enterprise partnerships, which are a huge step forward. We can help the private sector by not having a stratified structure of RDAs across the country. We need different structures in different parts of the country, to deal with the problems in each area. We must concentrate Government advice on business sectors, rather than on regions. It was complete nonsense that the Government's car adviser was based in the north-east, unable to give advice to car manufacturers and component suppliers in Birmingham. We must concentrate on sectors, so that the automotive sector, for example, has a proper advice team in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

We must try to support those sectors that the UK is good at, and see how we can improve their export structure. I say this with hesitation at the moment, but our oil sector was respected throughout the world. Our pharmaceuticals, defence and financial services sectors were respected throughout the world, too, and in line with Sir James Dyson's recommendations, we must aim to become the No.1 high-tech exporter in Europe. We will do that by concentrating on the new, high-growth market sectors, such as those involving low-carbon and green technologies. Those are the industries of the future, and we ought to concentrate on them. We must also ensure that our universities and their basic research are world-beating, and that companies have the incentive to develop those world-beating ideas into products and services that we can sell in greater and greater quantities throughout the world.

Angela Smith: I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman says about the potential of our export and manufacturing sectors, but does he support nuclear power, nuclear energy and the supply of components to the nuclear energy industry as one of those sectors that are important for our future?

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I am very grateful for that intervention. I have always been a supporter of nuclear power, and I am one of the very few Members who have been to Chernobyl and survived, so I can see what goes wrong in the nuclear sector. However, with modern technology-I say this carefully-I can see that the nuclear sector has an important role to play in the range and mix of our power generation.

The Labour Government left us with another really dire legacy, however, because if we do not introduce nuclear power generation to this country I do not see how we can keep the lights going in the next 20 years- [ Interruption. ] The Liberal Democrats had different views, but they have looked at the problem and signed up to a nuclear power programme, and I congratulate them on that, because it is the right thing to do. We in this House should not come up with ideological dogma; we should all look at the facts and see what is the correct thing to do, which is- [ Interruption. ] It is all very well the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) pointing at the Liberal Democrats, but we in the Conservative party have had to swallow things that we do not like. We have looked at the facts and seen the correct thing to do. Therefore, I support nuclear power.

John Thurso: My hon. Friend will know of my long-term support for nuclear power, which I expressed often in the House in previous Parliaments. However, the critical thing is to be in favour not of nuclear power, but of a proper engineering and scientific-based assessment of how to ensure the lowest carbon energy, and if that leads us to nuclear, that is the correct answer.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: As always, my hon. Friend's wise words are correct. Nuclear power is not only an efficient way of generating energy, but a clean way. We have to use the very latest technology to deal with the nuclear waste that is produced, but I am absolutely certain that if we adopt an open mind and let our scientists get to work, we will find better and better ways of dealing with the waste that nuclear power stations produce. I welcome my hon. Friend's support on that.

Innovation and exports are just beginning to return, and I am sure that hon. Members from all parts, if they have listened to businesses in their constituencies, will have had that experience. I have a wonderful firm in my constituency, a small FTSE company called Renishaw. It is the world-beater in measuring technology-metrology-but unfortunately it had to lay off several hundred people during the worst of the recession. I am pleased to report to the House, however, that in the past month or so it has begun to re-employ people. That is good news, because we must all work hard on measures with regard to how we employ the maximum number of people in this country. There is nothing worse than people who want to work but are unemployed-and unemployed through no fault of their own. We should concentrate on the terrible figures for 16 to 25-year-olds not in education, employment or training-the so-called NEETs-who are without jobs at the moment, because we have inherited a shocking waste of young talent.

Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP): In fact, in the 1980s youth unemployment was far higher than it is now. I share the hon. Gentleman's concern that youth unemployment is a major challenge, but when I look around my own constituency at people who have never worked, they are almost all people who found themselves as young unemployed people 20 or 25 years ago. That is the real problem, and words are not enough-we need to find solutions.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: I think, without knowing the hon. Lady's constituency backwards, that there are particular factors in her part of the United Kingdom as to why there was that rise in youth unemployment. We can argue about what happened 20, 30 or 40 years ago, but that is almost irrelevant. I am concerned about what the situation is today and what my right hon. and hon. Friends are going to do to deal with it, and I think that they have got some interesting and innovative ideas .

I have another example of a small company. It exports 300 sidecars a year to the Japanese market. We have heard about how difficult the Japanese market is. At our very best, our small and medium-sized, and even our large companies, are very innovative and very good at getting out there and exporting into some of the most difficult markets in the world. They just need a little more support, and then we can get more businesses exporting to the rest of the world. Chatham House recently reported that



It is the small and medium-sized firms that will lead us out of recession. It is the private sector that will compensate for the jobs that are lost in the public sector. It is the private sector to which we must give the right climate and right environment, and then it will thrive.

We have not only the right fiscal environment, but the right environment for dealing with bureaucracy and reducing the amount of burdens that Government place on the private sector. We must give it the right incentive to export and the right tools to do the job. I believe that this Government will lead us out of recession and that we will have a very much stronger economy in four or five years. I look forward to holding the hon. Member for Ogmore to his word. When we have a stronger economy, and when we start helping the most vulnerable in our society, I expect an apology from him.

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