Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Grant Shapps and Jessica Morden(7 months, 1 week ago)
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Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is right to point that out, because some assumptions have been a little misplaced in this House until now. We will ensure that we can do a whole range of things that will help to make this country stronger and more secure. On that, he has my word.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for Defence People and Families on behalf of Falklands veterans and their families, including Mike Hermanis, who brought the issue to me, for releasing the documents relating to the bombing of the Sir Galahad in 1982, which exonerate the Welsh Guards. I know that the campaign, which includes my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), will continue to seek the full truth, but does the Minister agree that instead of being blamed the Welsh Guards are owed our thanks for their service?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Grant Shapps and Jessica Morden(9 months ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Grant Shapps
We are working to try to bring supplies to all the citizens of Gaza. I did not run through the list of provisions, but it does include provisions for those in medical need, particularly women who may be pregnant. As I mentioned, we are working on plans with the Americans in particular, but also with the Jordanians, to provide vastly greater amounts of aid into Gaza.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Grant Shapps and Jessica Morden(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) said, high energy costs and competitiveness were cited by Liberty Steel when it also announced the idling of the Newport site, which is really hard news for the dedicated and skilled workforce there. No more warm words from the Government: what will the Government practically do to work in partnership with our industry, as other European countries are doing—and they are far more generous, which is the point here—to ensure that this key strategic industry is competitive?
Grant Shapps
The Government have worked very hard with the steel industry, to the sum of hundreds of millions of pounds, and will continue to do so. We do recognise the strategic importance of steel, and we also recognise that energy prices are very high. As I mentioned to the hon. Member’s colleague, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), a moment ago, we have already consulted on and will be in a position to say more soon about greater discounts in the energy-intensive industries, but we need to work together to make sure we can deliver that, and I look forward to extending the invitation to her as well.
Newport Wafer Fab
Debate between Grant Shapps and Jessica Morden(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Urgent 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.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right—it is about protecting UK interests. I know he has great expertise on the issue from the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, so he understands what he is talking about. It is very important, for example, that the critical mineral strategy is supporting throughout, including with semiconductors. In the end—I think the whole House will agree with this—if there is a trigger that requires us to take national security measures, and if we judge that the bar has been hit and we are concerned enough, not to take remedying action would clearly be a dereliction of duty. That is the reason we have stepped in and acted. All the other points are right. We want to see the continuation of semiconductor production, but we must take national security first. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Well done to my hon. Friend, and neighbour, the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) for securing this urgent question. Many of the 500-plus employees live in Newport East have been in touch over the weekend. I reiterate the great uncertainty that they now feel as a result of this decision. One would have thought that at least one of this year’s three Secretaries of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy would have met the company to understand the impact of this decision on people’s lives. The Secretary of State has not answered the question, so I ask again: what is he going to do to protect jobs?
Grant Shapps
First, because of the process there is not quite as much freedom as the hon. Lady sets out for the Secretary of State to judge a quasi-judicial case such as this in the way she describes. I agree with her and sympathise with everybody who will be concerned about their jobs. I happen to think that their future remains bright. On the requirement for those skilled jobs, demand is very high and, through this process, as Nexperia comes back with its plan, we will be looking for a plan that helps to protect those jobs.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Grant Shapps and Jessica Morden(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
Reducing road deaths and injuries is something that I am very passionate about. We are working all the time with National Highways and the local highways authorities. I will certainly make sure that my hon. Friend gets an urgent meeting with the Roads Minister to discuss her specific issues.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Transport
Debate between Grant Shapps and Jessica Morden(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Grant Shapps
I can absolutely reassure the hon. Lady that under this Government we are seeing, and will be seeing, a lot more electrification. I do take slight issue with the idea that the only way to get to a decarbonised railway is to electrify it. There are other possibilities, including, in particular, hydrogen, which we are starting to experiment with on the railways right now—an excellent plan going forward. On her point about roads, bicycles and other forms of transport need roads, so we still have to have them built in this country. I simply do not believe that there is a way round that.
Grant Shapps
I will make a little progress, if the hon. Lady does not mind.
It is important to realise that we are very keen not only to reduce CO2 but to grow the economy at the same time. The two things are not incompatible; in fact, they go hand in hand. We can do this more successfully if we grow the economy, because then we can get in front of the technology. One of the measures in the Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday was to consult on ending petrol and diesel car sales in 2035 or earlier rather than 2040, with the aim of ensuring that the British car manufacturing sector gets the advantage of completely clean travel, which they can then exploit by selling it to the rest of the world. That is one reason why we should be so ambitious to do this. The sector can create jobs—millions of jobs. It is already employing very large numbers of people in this country. This Government want to help society and the economy adapt towards the new decarbonised world.
I recognise—I have said this at the Dispatch Box as recently as last week—that transport contributes over a quarter of the UK’s domestic greenhouse gases; it is a big number. It has become the leading source of greenhouse gases, considering that energy, as described before, has become so much less polluting. That is why, as I say, we came out with the target to move forward with the end of petrol and diesel. That is faster, I should say, than any other European market. In a country that does not produce cars, it is easy to say, “You must only buy an electric car”, but we have a dozen different domestic car producers that we have to take with us on this—and we will. That is why we are investing £1.5 billion over six years to make the UK the best place to own and to manufacture electric cars, and why we are delivering a further £1 billion to transform the automotive sector. Schemes like the Faraday battery challenge and the Advanced Propulsion Centre are funding development of the supply chain, and that can be massively important to this transformation.
Jessica Morden
Electric vehicles need steel—crucially, electrical steel. Just before Christmas, Tata mothballed the only maker of electrical steel in the UK. Does the Secretary of State agree that the Government have to step in and help the steel industry at this difficult time if we want an end-to-end supply chain in this country?
Grant Shapps
That was worked in well, and there is an important point to make. We want to ensure the supply chain not just of steel and electrical steel but of batteries in a gigafactory. Last October, we announced that we are putting up to £1 billion into supporting a gigafactory in this country. People can also expect us to want to support the supply chain, because it is good business, rather than providing subsidy for the sake of subsidy, to make this country a leading one in Europe. We sell one in five of the electric cars sold in Europe and we build them here, and we want to expand that a lot further.