I had the pleasure of taking Philip Hammond MP, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the treasury, to meet local businesses.
We looked at house building with Conroy Brook developments in Brockholes, engineering with Dathan Gear Cutting in Meltham and more manufacturing with an environmental angle with Disposables UK in Meltham. Thanks to all our hosts for an informative and warm welcome.
A Conservative government will take three key steps to rebuild our broken economy:
- We need to get banks lending again. For nearly a year, we have been calling for a National Loan Guarantee Scheme to underwrite bank lending to businesses, to save businesses and protect jobs.
- We need a credible plan to get the £175 billion annual deficit under control. That means taking the tough choices in public spending we have set out, such as a one-year public sector pay freeze except for the lowest paid.
- We need a plan for growth. We will abolish all tax on jobs created by new companies for two years; we will introduce a radical new programme for everyone who is unemployed so we can Get Britain Working again; and we will create a high-skill economy by building a new generation of technical schools, creating 100,000 new apprenticeships, and funding 10,000 extra university places.
Britain has the resources, people, ingenuity and ideas to get us out of recession. We just need a government that will help, not stand in the way.
