Industrial Strategy

Debate between Graham Stringer and Greg Clark

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

I will indeed. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his tireless work in chairing the all-party group on the fourth industrial revolution and promoting the importance of embracing the new technologies of the future. He is absolutely right that there is a big opportunity for small and medium-sized businesses in particular. We have succeeded in having some of our biggest firms comprehensively embrace new technology, and the strategy points out some areas in which we can work with small and medium-sized businesses to diffuse that across the economy more generally.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

The key to any successful industrial policy must be low and competitive energy costs. Energy costs in the United States have halved, and the reductions in China and India have been similar, but ours have gone up. How will the Secretary of State change that damaging trend?

[Greg Clark]

The industrial strategy is very clear and makes that precise point. We have a substantial report from Professor Dieter Helm, the energy economist, looking at how we can meet our carbon reduction commitments but at the minimum cost to consumers, whether they be domestic or industrial consumers. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will have a chance to look at the report, which we will be responding to shortly, because our ambition is as he describes: to minimise the energy costs facing businesses.