Business of the House

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am delighted to hear of the good news in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and he reminds the House that the 24 new enterprise zones will come on stream in April. They will bring a range of benefits, including access to capital allowances, business rate relief and new superfast broadband. That is a part of our strategy of rebalancing the economy by encouraging manufacturing and thereby getting a more sustainable foundation for the growth in employment that we all want.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

At a recent meeting of the Sustainable Business Forum, it became clear that UK Trade & Investment had no strategy for green economic development under the local enterprise partnerships. Indeed, UKTI was not even aware that eight of the partnerships have been designated specifically for green economic development, and its website is still showing Vestas as one of the key British flagship companies in green economic development. May we have a debate in Government time about the Government’s strategy for green economic growth in this country?

[Sir George Young]

The Government are indeed committed to green economic growth, and a number of the measures taken by the Department of Energy and Climate Change have been designed precisely to ensure that. I will take up the specific issue the hon. Gentleman raises about UKTI to see if anything needs to be done there, and I shall draw his point to the attention of my ministerial colleagues at both DECC and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.