Oral Answers to Questions

Claire Coutinho Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The strategy is committed to 24 GW, and it is about large-scale nuclear and SMRs, which my hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) referred to. It will be a balance, and we feel that we can reach that. It is rich of Scottish National party Members to deride our nuclear programme when they do not even agree with it. They think the whole thing is a complete waste of time. Where else would we find decarbonised baseload? They do not have the answer to that.

[Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kwasi Kwarteng)]

I am pleased to announce that since I last addressed the House we have committed £37 billion, along with our friends in the Treasury, to support the most vulnerable households with the cost of living. We have managed to attract substantial new investments across the piece in new technologies, and we continue to focus on energy, to ensure that it is sustainable, affordable and, above all, secure in the coming months.

[Claire Coutinho]

Semiconductors are an unbelievably important strategic asset to this country, and I commend the Secretary of State for calling in the acquisition of Newport Wafer Fab, which is our largest producer of semiconductors and an important innovator of compound semiconductors. That is exactly what the National Security and Investment Act 2021 was designed to do. Will he update the House on his next steps?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend will know that the NSI Act, which came into scope at the beginning of this year, gives me as Secretary of State powers to call in transactions that I feel are detrimental to national security. After long consideration and weighing up all the evidence, Newport Wafer Fab was, I think rightly, deemed to be such a transaction.