Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I would certainly be happy to visit Markham Vale at some point and talk those things through with the hon. Gentleman. His area has a local enterprise partnership and has had an opportunity to put in a bid for an enterprise zone or the regional growth fund. I do not know what it has done, but I am certainly happy to talk to him.

I know that the hon. Gentleman is a long-standing Member and I am sure that he has followed the changes in attitudes towards manufacturing in this House under different Governments. He will be interested in the leader of the Labour party’s new distinction between “predators” and “producers”. What is troubling a lot of us on the Government Benches is why a party of dinosaurs is so opposed to predators. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can explain.

[Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Companies in my constituency that manufacture construction products, quarry materials for concrete or build materials for the construction industry have very much welcomed the plan announced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) to bring forward infrastructure projects in order to increase employment and build manufacturing capacity in the United Kingdom. Given falling growth and rising unemployment, would it not be prudent for the Business Secretary to support that plan?