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Economic Growth and Employment

When will Government Members take responsibility? I wish that we were still in government, but we have not been for 18 months now. It is about time that they got used to the fact that they are in government and took responsibility. Business is crying out not for a Government who step aside and fail or refuse to act but for one who adopt an active approach, using all the tools at their disposal to create the conditions for private sector growth. For all their claims about our record, such as the ones that we have just heard, the Government have kept in place some of the support measures for business that we left them on leaving office. I should point out that under Labour, 1.1 million businesses were created. When we left office, the UK was rated fourth by the World Bank for the ease of doing business, and first in Europe. Under this Government, the UK has dropped to seventh in the global rankings. We will take no lectures from the Government on support for business. In government, we set up the Better Regulation Executive and the Regulatory Policy Committee to improve the quality, and where appropriate reduce the quantity, of regulation on business. I note that the Government have continued with them.