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Treasury

Answer

Mrs. Curtis-Thomas: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the Government have done (a) to improve competition, (b) to promote enterprise, (c) to support science and innovation, (d) to raise UK skills and (e) to encourage investment in the last five years. [124208] John Healey: The Government's approach to raising productivity centres on tackling historic microeconomic weaknesses in five areas that can drive productivity growth: competition, enterprise, science and innovation, skills, and investment. It is precisely to address these areas that the Government have: Introduced the Enterprise Act 2002 to strengthen competition in the economy, creating a new proactive role for the Office of Fair Trading; Reduced corporation tax rates and made major reforms to capital gains tax to enhance the UK as an internationally competitive location for business; Introduced the R&D tax credit for small and large firms, as well as provide the largest sustained increase in the Science Budget for more than a decade; Launched six new Employer Training Pilots and made improvements to the UK Migration system to make it better address the needs of the economy; Made new proposals to promote greater flexibility in the housing market, and to streamline and simplify the planning regime. This Government's strategy for raising UK productivity growth was set out in "Productivity in the UK: the evidence and the Government's approach" (November 2000). A progress report was given in "Productivity in the UK: progress towards a productive economy" (March 2001), and "Enterprise and the productivity challenge" (June 2001) set out further steps Government are taking to improve the UK's productivity performance. Further steps were announced in subsequent Budgets.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

124208; 408 c870W;408 c868W

Session

2002-03

Subjects

Competition Investment Innovation Science Productivity Trade competitiveness Research and development tax credit

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk