Oral Answers to Questions

Jacob Young Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to increase the proportion of civil service jobs based outside London.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to increase the proportion of civil service jobs based outside London.

[David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to increase the proportion of civil service jobs based outside London.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. We hope to be able to announce where we are going to place hub locations shortly. I am afraid that I am not in a position to confirm that now, but I am very confident that the north-west will benefit from the programme. I hope that he will engage with that and contribute in his role on the levelling-up taskforce.

[Jacob Young]

The purpose of moving civil service jobs out of London is not simply to relocate jobs from one part of the country to another, but to place policy makers in communities that have been left behind for too long, such as mine in Redcar and Cleveland. Can my hon. Friend confirm that she has seen the plans presented by Ben Houchen to relocate civil service jobs to Teesside, and will she commit to meeting me and my Tees Valley colleagues to progress these plans further?

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

Again, my hon. Friend makes an important point. There is no better representation of how we work well together as a country than the shared sacrifices made by those in our military, and they are doing an outstanding job in supporting us in the fight against coronavirus, as they did in all the challenges we have faced in the last 100 years.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

Last night, the immigration Bill was signed into law, ending freedom of movement from 31 December and allowing us to create our points-based immigration system, delivering on our promise to get Brexit done and take back control of our borders. Can my right hon. Friend outline what he envisages our future travel arrangements will be with our European Union partners?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes absolutely the right point—we will be able to control who comes into this country—but we will also have visa-free travel with the EU.