Oral Answers to Questions

David Crausby Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has put it very well indeed. We cannot enter the negotiations taking the stance that the Labour party and the SNP have taken. As my hon. Friend says, their rejection of a “no deal” means that they would accept a deal at any price to the British taxpayer, whatever the damage it would do to our economy, and we will not do that.

[Sir David Crausby (Bolton North East) (Lab)]

Q13. We are seeing the loss of skilled jobs at British Aerospace in Lancashire and more at Vauxhall in Ellesmere Port, as well as redundancies at Austin in Preston and Monarch in Manchester. What has happened to the northern powerhouse? Has its battery gone flat? If so, will the Prime Minister recharge it, as she rightly did in Northern Ireland?

[The Prime Minister]

As I said earlier to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Ms McVey), the Government are committed to the northern powerhouse, and, indeed, are putting money into it to encourage economic growth, particularly through our investment in infrastructure. The hon. Gentleman raised a number of cases, and the issue of Vauxhall was raised by one of his hon. Friends earlier. We are continuing to work with Vauxhall throughout the process to do all that we can to protect United Kingdom jobs, as we have done with BAE Systems and as we are doing with others. What matters, however, is ensuring that we have an economy that can enable more jobs to be created, and 3 million more people are in work today than in 2010.