David Jones
Main Page: David Jones (Conservative - Clwyd West)Department Debates - View all David Jones's debates with the Wales Office
Ford in Bridgend
David Jones Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Alun Cairns
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising those points and for his comments and contributions in the call that we had earlier today. He rightly points out that this is a consultation from Ford, and we will therefore work closely with the unions in challenging the assumptions and statements that Ford has made where we believe them not to be the case.
The UK has a good record of investment in this sector. According to the latest available data, there is a 20% uplift in investment in the automotive sector, which demonstrates that we still remain attractive. We will of course work closely with the Welsh Government on attracting investment to the area, to serve the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and the employees who come from a much wider field than just the community of Bridgend. We remember that there was a Ford plant in Swansea not so long ago and that people travelled to that. The effects therefore stretch much further west, east and north than just the Bridgend site.
The Welsh Government clearly have a responsibility under the devolution settlement for economic developments, but we will continue to work closely with them, as well as with the Department for International Trade, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the whole might of Whitehall to support the employees by attracting investment to that site.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
The shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees), has sought to blame Brexit for Ford’s decision, but Stuart Rowley, the European President of Ford, has said in terms that it has nothing to do with Brexit. He has also said that
“if Brexit had never happened, would there be a different decision, and the answer to that is no.”
Does my right hon. Friend not agree that it is particularly regrettable that Opposition Members should seek so cynically to exploit the personal tragedy of 1,700 people for such nakedly political purposes?