Foreign Direct Investment 2016-17

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2017 Westminster Hall

[Michael Tomlinson]

I completely agree that we should be positive about our future outside the EU. The whole purpose of the opening part of my speech was to show that, even after last year’s EU referendum result, the situation has not been all doom and gloom. I will talk about Scotland and the regions a little later in my speech, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Even though we are all a little tired after last night, many of us have turned up here today because this is an important subject.

I urge the hon. Gentleman not to be too optimistic. During my career in Parliament, I have spent a long time as chair of the all-party group on manufacturing and I have tried to encourage investment in this country. At the moment, proposals from Japan, China and America are very tentative. They think that, as we go through the Brexit process, some sensible solutions will be reached regarding our access to the European market, but nothing is definite yet. There are lots of things hanging. I have just come back from New York, and what I find is that nobody in financial services in New York will accept or even apply for a job in London at the moment—

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is a very experienced Member and he knows very well that that intervention was too long. The previous intervention was from a new Member, the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), and he can be excused both for its being rather lengthy and for reading it, which is not something one would normally expect. I remind Members that interventions should be short, and they should be direct questions, not mini-speeches.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) on delivering such an excellent and comprehensive speech. Like he, I am a glass-half-full person, who looks optimistically towards the future, and the facts, as I hope to illustrate, will indicate that things are very bright. If we try to be positive and look forward we can find solutions and see the good things. It is not always good to dwell upon the negative things; it is good to be aware of them but not to dwell on them.

Northern Ireland, as such a small country, is somewhat reliant on foreign investment and it is clear that we have the expertise and knowledge to attract investment from all over the world. I want to give a Northern Ireland perspective, because the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole referred to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I say that often; I have said it every day since I came into this House back in 2010, to emphasise that we are very much part of the United Kingdom and that we are all together—Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England.

Northern Ireland secured 33 foreign direct investment projects during 2015-16—as the Minister knows, we have some good stories—which created more than 2,000 jobs. Despite the usual Brexit warnings that scream that FDI will be affected by our leaving the EU zone, I read a piece by an economist that states:

“From a Northern Ireland perspective, the type of inward investment we have been winning has been back office functions, which may not need the access to the single market, if its function is to serve a parent company. Investor motives for investing here would back that up, with a strong majority of investors citing the skilled workforce as the main reason for investing here.”

Backing that up, figures in yesterday’s press indicate that the region of the United Kingdom with the strongest growth rate is Northern Ireland. So there is an indication that we are growing and that Northern Ireland is, for once, leading the way.

[Mr Sheerman]

Before the hon. Gentleman gets carried away with all these good feelings about the future, he would surely agree that our productivity is absolutely awful, looking carefully at UK performance. Many people who would like to invest in this country are worried about low productivity rates. Productivity is much higher in Yorkshire, which has a much bigger population than Northern Ireland and some of the places he has mentioned. We are doing very well and manufacturing is still alive and well. People would be much better off investing in manufacturing in Yorkshire than coming to Northern Ireland.

[Jim Shannon]

I am always happy to receive an intervention from the hon. Gentleman. He is definitely an optimist as he is a Huddersfield Town supporter, and that is an indication of optimism at its highest. I wish him well, although on Saturday I hope Leicester beat them. I digress slightly, but there are ways of doing better and we need to address productivity.