Douglas Carswell
Main Page: Douglas Carswell (Independent - Clacton)AstraZeneca (Pfizer Bid)
Douglas Carswell ExcerptsUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Vince Cable
There is nothing in the Enterprise Act 2002 —in retrospect, this is probably regrettable—that refers in any way to the issues that the right hon. Gentleman has described. I was part of those debates; I think he probably was, too. The only areas in which a public interest intervention is allowed under that legislation relate to national security and media plurality. Subsequently, banks were added; as they were overwhelmingly domiciled in the UK, that fell outside European legislation. Those are the very narrow grounds on which the existing legislation allows intervention.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that Britain benefits enormously from the free movement of investment and ideas? It is why all that R and D is happening in Cambridge and elsewhere in the first place. Will he therefore rule out any of the economic nativism being called for by some in this House and rule out any attempt to frustrate this deal on protectionist grounds?
Vince Cable
As I have already said, I would certainly rule out intervention on protectionist grounds, but I am not ruling out intervention, because we need to look at all the options available to us.