---

Finance Bill

I am tempted to tell the right hon. Gentleman that a few more dockyards, shipyards, car plants, steelworks, coal mines, engineering factories and chemical factories were either closed or shipped off somewhere else when the Conservatives were in power than is the case now. I am not one to say that, because an industry is in a particular position, it should be there forever. Things change, and I will come on to discuss high-value investment and jobs. My main point is that the evidence for the Conservatives’ argument that we are failing to compete in a global world does not hold up. I am happy to trade any evidence that the Opposition Front Bench wishes to use as a test. We would all agree, for example, that growth is a reasonable test, and the British economy has now had an all-time record 59 consecutive quarters of growth.