Andrew Murrison
Main Page: Andrew Murrison (Conservative - South West Wiltshire)Department Debates - View all Andrew Murrison's debates with the Department for Business and Trade
(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Further to the answer that the Minister gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), will she at least concede that it would be opportune to conduct an audit of our critical national industries, to ensure that if there are issues around foreign ownership, or ownership by malign state entities, we know where they are and have a plan to deal with them?
Sarah Jones
The right hon. Gentleman is right. We need an audit of our critical national industries, and we are doing that through our industrial strategy, so that, particularly in the eight growth-driving sectors that we have identified, we have policies to ensure that companies in the UK can continue to thrive. We believe in free and open trade, and we are not moving away from that; the Chancellor is making that case this week with our American colleagues. Security is incredibly important. The right hon. Gentleman will know that we are ensuring that where security is an issue, we take appropriate action, but that does not mean that we will stop trading with the second largest economy in the world.