GKN
Debate between Greg Clark and Gavin Shuker(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I greatly enjoyed the Secretary of State’s answer to the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), and I hope he will not take offence if I say that the hon. Member for Luton North was not himself in government—he looked rather shocked, nay affronted, by any suggestion that at any time in his career he might have been. The hon. Member for Luton North is a career Back Bencher and is immensely proud of the fact.
Mr Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
Workers at GKN’s Luton plant in my constituency are world leaders in ice protection systems for flight-deck windows and fast-jet canopies, and I believe they will share my dismay that the assurances the Secretary of State has put in place amount to little more than the new management picking up the phone and informing him before it does things that damage our national security and national interest. Is not the reality of the quasi-judicial nature of the decision-making process that he and future Secretaries of State will always veer on the side of caution, rather than face the prospect of being challenged in court when a takeover goes through?
Greg Clark
I am sure it is an unaccountable oversight that the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) has never served in government.
For the constituents of the hon. Member for Luton South (Mr Shuker), during the takeover bid, the incumbent management criticised the commitment to hold the aerospace division for five years. Given that a majority of the company was to be sold as part of the incumbent management’s plans, it is fair to observe that it is not clear there would be any greater stability—I put it as mildly as that—if the incumbent management had continued, rather than the new management that shareholders chose to manage the company.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Greg Clark and Gavin Shuker(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Greg Clark
We consulted widely on the Green Paper, and the set of reforms that we are making has enjoyed broad support. We are proposing to extend the holding periods for long-term share incentives from three years to five years. I think the hon. Lady played some part in the introduction of the three-year periods, and I hope that she will welcome the extension. We are also making it a more explicit requirement of boards, including boards of directors, to reflect in their reports and accounts what they are doing for a wider range of stakeholders, not just the short-term issues. I hope the hon. Lady will welcome that as well.
Mr Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
11. To ask the Secretary of State what assessment he has made of the capacity of the industrial strategy challenge fund to increase economic growth.
The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Clark)
The industrial strategy challenge fund will help to drive growth in all parts of the country by using research and development to position us well in global markets where Britain has particular strengths.
Greg Clark
Our exchanges this morning show the potential and the strengths that we have in successful sectors such as the automotive, healthcare and medicine, and satellite and space sectors, in which we are creating very good jobs. However, my ambition and my Department’s ambition—which I hope the hon. Gentleman shares—is to increase the proportion of women and other groups who are under-represented in those industries, because there is talent there that we should be using, and part of our drive is to get the best talent into those world-beating industries.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Greg Clark and Gavin Shuker(12 years ago)
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Greg Clark
It is in everyone’s interest to support the path we have embarked on to pay down the deficit. We know that the confidence in the UK economy, which has led to record low interest rates, depends on credibility—a credibility that the policies of the Opposition, by borrowing more, would jeopardise.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
7. What recent assessment he has made of the effect of the Government’s fiscal policies on the level of long-term unemployment.
National Planning Policy Framework
Debate between Greg Clark and Gavin Shuker
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
I am extremely grateful to the Minister for allowing me to interrupt his long line of congratulations. We half expected a telegram from the Queen and a note from his mum at some point. They are on their way. The serious point is that the Government have promised a lot on the subject of localism, but two years in, many local communities feel that even the reforms that the Minister has put forward have not delivered localism. What will he do to encourage communities to be confident that the Government will not turn their back on them?
Greg Clark
I confess that I was not able to include a telegram from the Queen, but I understand that the Prince’s Foundation for Building Community is extremely positive about the NPPF.
We find great enthusiasm across the country. In fact, I believe the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) is one of the champions of a neighbourhood plan in the city. Right across the country, people are taking up their new rights with great interest and enthusiasm.
National Planning Policy Framework
Debate between Greg Clark and Gavin Shuker
Greg Clark
Of course, it is open to local authorities, in allocating the land that they have to be developed, to allocate land that is derelict, and to do that rather than allocate green fields. If that is how they specify it, that is the land that has to be developed.
Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)
Much of England is now in drought across the south and east, and that problem will only be exacerbated in the next 20 or 30 years. Can the Minister say what in his policy framework will be in place to ensure that we tackle that problem?
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. This is why we need to have a plan-based system. We cannot have a plan-based system if half the country does not have a plan. If local authorities adopt a local plan, as we are encouraging every council to do, it is precisely so that they can anticipate future needs, such as the need for water, schools and infrastructure. With that in place, they have a fighting chance of ensuring that any homes that are provided have the facilities needed to accommodate them.