Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee, for that. I am aware of her previous exchanges with the Chancellor, who has undertaken to look at this issue. I will be working with him and we will respond in due course.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Academic assessments by the Treasury are crucial, but my constituents are reeling from hundreds of job losses at Vauxhall. Last night’s comments by the chief executive officer of Airbus that whatever Brexit we have will be net negative means we are talking again about hundreds of my constituents’ jobs on the line. I plead with the Minister to take this seriously, keep us in the single market and customs union, and keep my constituents in their jobs.

[John Glen]

I assure the hon. Lady that I take this very seriously, and the Government’s intention certainly is to negotiate a deep and special partnership on economic and security matters. There is room for positivity; if we look at what GSK, Google and Apple have said, we see that that attitude of positivity and optimism as we look forward is necessary.