Newport Wafer Fab Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Earl of Erroll
Main Page: Earl of Erroll (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)Department Debates - View all Earl of Erroll's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Newport Wafer Fab
Earl of Erroll Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
I am sorry to hear about my noble friend’s Land Rover key; I hope it is restored to him as quickly as possible. We have a very active semi- conductor manufacturing and research and development facility in this country. We have over 100 companies actively working with compound semiconductor devices. Around 5,000 UK companies, 90% of which are SMEs, are designing and making electronics components devices, systems and products. The Chancellor announced an increase in funding in this area. The south Wales cluster is particularly important. We are spending hundreds of millions of pounds promoting it. We are very proud of it. This has no implications beyond that specific transaction, which was considered on national security grounds under the legislation, as the Secretary of State is required to do.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
Does the Minister agree that it is not just a matter of intellectual property or the number of research and development staff, but that we must manufacture stuff and not be totally reliant on foreign supplies? Reinforcing what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, just said, it is a bit like being unable to grow crops and feed your people. If we cannot manufacture, we will collapse because we cannot import the stuff. It could be bog standard chips or bog standard anything. We need to get our manufacturing capability up in this modern world, where there will be a shortage of all this stuff.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I agree with the noble Lord. That is why in 2016 we set up the Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult, with £50 million of funding. Since then, it has initiated over £100 million of projects and collaborative projects which have generated or saved over 4,700 jobs in the UK. Therefore, we are very active in this space. This decision has no implications for that investment, which will continue. It was a quasi-judicial decision on national security grounds, which is what the Secretary of State is required to do.