Rebecca
Long-Bailey MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and
Industrial Strategy,
commenting on falling productivity in the UK, said:

“Our
capacity to raise long run living standards seems to be going backwards.

“Productivity
growth has been the basis of rises in living standards over the last two
hundred years. Yet for each hour of work we put in today, we get less out than
we did ten years ago. Further, productivity was 15.1 per cent below the average
for the rest of the G7 in 2016.

“This country needs a radical and transformative
industrial strategy. The only party that can deliver this is Labour.”

Sue Hayman MP, Labour’s
Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, commenting on
the proposed ban on ivory sales, said: 

“A total ban on trading ivory is long overdue.

"Finally, Environment
Secretary Michael Gove has followed Labour’s lead on this issue. 

“But, given the
Conservative Party’s failure to include this policy in their manifesto and
their notoriously poor record on animal welfare, it will be crucial to
scrutinise any exemptions to the trade ban being proposed and to ensure these
proposals are comprehensive and followed through.”

John McDonnell MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, responding to Theresa May’s speech today at Conservative Party conference, said:

“By the time the current leader of the Conservative Party eventually finished speaking, she had a total of £15 billion in spending commitments just in this Parliament without a single reference to how the money will be found to pay for them. The Tory magical money tree returns.”

Anneliese
Dodds MP, Labour’s Shadow Treasury Minister,
responding to the European Commission’s proposals for reform of the EU VAT
system, said:

“Over €50bn of VAT is lost
every year through VAT fraud across Europe and the announcement from the
European Commission is a welcome step forward to make sure Britain receives the
tax it is due from trading across the continent. The reforms will also make it
cheaper and easier than ever for British firms to trade around Europe by using
a one stop shop so that each company will not need to comply with 28 different
VAT regimes.

“The UK Government must support these reforms in the European Council
and ensure that British businesses can continue to benefit from them after we
leave the EU. We need more clarity from the Tories on how they intend to maintain
the ease of access to the European market that we have now, while keeping
compliance costs low. “

Barbara Keeley MP, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet
Minister for Mental Health, commenting on mental health announcements in
Theresa May’s Speech to the Conservative Party Conference, said:

“The burning injustice that
remains in mental health is that underfunding means services are failing too
many people.

"An independent
review of the Mental Health Act is long overdue and to be
welcomed but, far from being better funded than ever before, more
than a quarter of CCGs have under-spent their mental health budgets for
2016/17. 

"A Labour
Government would invest more money in mental health and ring-fence budgets so
that money for mental health reaches the front line rather than being siphoned
off for other priorities.”