Business of the House

Gareth Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The Government take this issue very seriously. We have worked on a number of different ways to seek to boost manufacturing, whether it is protection of the science budget, investment in the regional growth fund, or investment in apprenticeships. We now have some great success stories in this country. Our automotive industry, in particular, has been a tremendous success in recent years. To make, I am afraid, a party political point, I remind Labour Members that while it is popular wisdom, often repeated by many of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues, that the manufacturing base of this country declined sharply in the years of Conservative government, the actual truth is that when the Conservative party was in government in the 1980s manufacturing as a share of our economy fell slightly, but under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown it almost halved.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

The approach to the Dartford crossing on the M25 has become Britain’s worst stretch of motorway. The free-flow system introduced earlier this year has clearly failed to live up to expectations, leading to horrendous traffic jams in the area. May we have a debate on the issue and how the residents of Dartford are left at the mercy of any incident that takes place at the Dartford crossing?