The visit will take place on Tuesday July 20. Anyone who would like to take part should contact [...]]]> A few places are still available to Beverley and Holderness constituents who would like to visit Graham at the House of Commons. This will be the first Westminster visit hosted by Graham since the new government was formed.

The visit will take place on Tuesday July 20. Anyone who would like to take part should contact Damien Brook at the Beverley and Holderness constituency office on (01482) 679 687 or email damien.brook@grahamstuart.com

 The MP cut a ribbon at the start of the two day event, being held at Hull’s Bonus Arena, before addressing around 100 business leaders at a lunch.

This is the full text of his speech:

“Thank [...]]]> Graham Stuart, MP for Beverley and Holderness, has officially opened this year’s major business event in the area Chamber Expo 2010.

 The MP cut a ribbon at the start of the two day event, being held at Hull’s Bonus Arena, before addressing around 100 business leaders at a lunch.

This is the full text of his speech:

“Thank you – I am honoured to have been invited to open Hull and Humber Chamber of Commerce’s 2010 Expo.

 ”It is inspiring to see the amazingly diverse range of businesses which are based in this area.

 ”I’m afraid, that unlike your speaker last year – who persuaded those in attendance to walk over hot coals with blistering results – I won’t be attempting any tricks with fire, my only combustible material is my fiery rhetoric…

 ”Actually, juggling with fire while walking a tightrope over, say, the Humber Bridge, would seem like child’s play compared to the main task of our new coalition government – dealing with the desperate deficit which we have inherited.

 ”Yet again our country is brought to its knees, yet again only enterprise and hard work will turn it around.

 ”Like many of you, I am a businessman – I still own the publishing company I set up as a student aged 21. What I learned running that business was the importance of cashflow and the necessity to tackle deficits before they tackle you. So I thought I would say a few words about the public finances.

 ”The government this year has an income of $540 billion. Its expenditure is around £700 billion. That’s where the £160 billion deficit we hear so much bout springs from. Income 540, expenditure 700 – a 30% overspend.

 ”This has little to do with the banking crisis and everything to do with gross overspending by a government which thought it had abolished boom and bust.

 ”That’s why growth alone will not sort the problem out.

 ”The fundamentals of our economy have been damaged and need to be repaired.

 ”Eight million people were allowed to become economically inactive.

 ”Government spending was ratcheted up even when the economy was shrinking.

 ”By the end of last year our economy was 4% smaller than in 2007.

 ”While the private sector was tightening its belt, laying people off, cutting overtime and fighting to survive the public sector just carried on as before.

 ”Since 2007 public spending has increased by 15% – some £120 billion in just three years.

 ”While public sector employment fell in this period by 3.7%, public sector employment rose.

 ”This did not balance the economy, it destabilised it.

 ”The cuts coming now will be far worse because of this imbalance.

 ”The private sector is now smaller than it was six years ago and that has to change.

 ”As I said before the government’s income is £540 billion. Imagine the country as a small business with a turnover of £540,000. That it lost £160,000 last year, was planning to do the same this year and intended to keep losing money for the next five years, by which time its accumulated debts would be £1.4 million and losses would still be running at £80,000. Wouldn’t that business be bankrupt? Yet those numbers exactly correlate with our government’s income of £540 billion and expected net debt of £1.4 trillion in five years time. That’s excluding off balance sheet items such as public sector pensions and PFIs which might take that number to well over £2 trillion.

 ”That’s the legacy of the last government and that is why we are immediately cutting spending by £6.2 billion, so as to start on the long road to recovery.

 ”However, just as a business – when it restructures – must look to opportunities for future growth and investment, no matter how bleak the immediate financial outlook, so along with this fiscal tightening must come a rebalancing of our economy so that once again it is the private sector which drives growth and creates wealth.

 ”We in this area have the people, the resources and the initiative to build our economy again.

 ”In my own constituency there is the remarkable example of the Sirius Enterprise Agency. Whenever I attend their annual Business Fair I am amazed at their remarkable achievements – in the last ten years they have funded more than two hundred firms – what a track record and something their chief funder, BP, can be proud of in difficult times.

 ”If this country and this area want growth and stability, as opposed to the shadow of debt and uncertainty, we need to encourage business investment and resist calls for greater business taxation.

 ”That is why this new government has reversed the greatest part of the employers National Insurance increase.

 ”It is why the Chancellor has announced a plan over the next five years to reduce corporation tax – with the aim of making us the most competitive business tax regime in Europe.

 ”We are going to raise the threshold for income tax to encourage more people to work and although that will be partially funded by an increase in Capital Gains Tax, business assets will be excluded and there will be generous exemptions for entrepreneurs.

 ”But make no mistake, when it is safe, and yes, ‘prudent’, to cut taxes, then this new coalition government will.

 ”Along with the independent Office of Budget Responsibility, which will guarantee we won’t get into this sort of financial mess again, we are creating an Office of Tax Simplification. Even if we can’t have lower taxes right away, we can at least have simpler ones

 ”As a small business owner, I know that over-regulation throttles enterprise.  Red tape costs Hull business more than £1 billion. This regulatory straitjacket must be relaxed.

 ”So there is to be a strict ‘one in one out’ policy on new regulations – we won’t be able to bring one in without getting rid of another burdensome regulation. And the Department for Business is already looking at how to eject the regulations you find most undesirable.

 ”As a local MP I will continue to fight tirelessly for local interests, businesses and jobs.

 ”That is why I highlighted the Humber Bridge tolls in the last parliament and, supported by Martin Vickers, now MP for Cleethorpes and Andrew Percy, now MP for Brigg and Goole, persuaded the government to freeze them.

 ”I also persuaded George Osborne to agree to a Treasury-led review of the economic impact of the tolls. I have already met with him to remind him of this and look forward to its results.

 ”We are all concerned at the length of time it takes government to deliver large-scale infrastructure projects, and worry about delays to the works on Castle Street in Hull, the A160 to Immingham and any threat to the southern by-pass for Beverley.

 ”When our roads are blocked, business efficiency is damaged too.

 ”There is such a strong case for upgrading this region’s road infrastructure. The deficit will make it hard for years to come to win those arguments.

 ”The time for the splashing of an overflowing governmental Jacuzzi of cash is over. In the past couple of years you have had to adapt, prune and increase efficiency to survive in straitened times – now it is the turn of government to do the same.

 ”Businesses in Hull and the Humber have shown their versatility, their ability to roll with the punches, and none more so than Teckno Developments in Beverley. In January before last I well remember rushing over to the terrible fire at Trevor and Antony Langley’s factory. Astoundingly, they were up and running in new premises only a few days later, and amazingly, a year on, they have a full order book. Not only have they avoided lay-offs – they have actually taken on extra staff!

 ”In the coming years we will make government slimmer, smarter and more accountable.

 ”Never again must we have fiascos like the government’s handling of capital for further education colleges. Both the East Riding and Hull colleges have been left in the lurch. We are lucky that both are so well led and will nonetheless prosper.

“We will bring government closer to the people. This is why we are getting rid of Regional Spatial Strategies, why we are returning the powers of Regional Development Agencies to local councils, enabling them to work in Local Enterprise Partnerships with local business. And it is why we will replace the Infrastructure Commission with an efficient and democratically accountable system that provides a fast-track process for major infrastructure projects.

 ”And already there are new and specific opportunities for business and government to work together.  One of the areas where we will be investing more in is apprenticeships so that excellent organisations like HETA can expand their scope.

 ”Because building world leading new industries in areas such as low carbon energy will require great engineers and great people. This area has enormous potential in, and to become, a major player in offshore wind and tide power.

 ”Let us work to ensure that Hull is chosen as the site of the new Siemens wind turbine factory – which would create over two thousand jobs. This area can look to both green and grow the economy.

 ”Ladies and gentlemen, tough times lie ahead, the legacy from the last government is terrible. We must act now to avert disaster. We have to live within our means, not because of theory or ideology, but because if we do not our people will suffer and so will out national interest.

 ”But we are all in this together and the new government knows that it is enterprising, inventive, visionary people like you who will rebuild our economy and so provide dignity, prosperity and work for all our people.”

Graham Stuart MP has accused the Prime Minister of avoiding answering questions on the unfair health funding in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

The Beverley and Holderness MP was called on by the Speaker to ask a question during Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons.

 Graham asked the PM: “Health funding is skewed to [...]]]>

Graham Stuart MP has accused the Prime Minister of avoiding answering questions on the unfair health funding in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

The Beverley and Holderness MP was called on by the Speaker to ask a question during Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons.

 Graham asked the PM: “Health funding is skewed to younger, urban Labour voting areas at the expense of older, rural constituencies such as mine so that Hull receives £1,800 per head and the East Riding just £1,200. The PM knows that age rather than deprivation is the key driver of health need so why does he put Labour’s electoral interests ahead of the needs of the sick?”

But after Gordon Brown appeared simply to list a number of health projects happening across the whole of the Yorkshire and Humber region, Graham said: “The PM avoided answering my question about unfair funding for healthcare in the East Riding. Instead he rattled out selected statistics for the whole of Yorkshire.

“It is clear that it is not a change in the voting system that we need, but a change of Government so the NHS is run for the benefit of the sick and not as an electoral aid for the Labour Party.”