Newport Wafer Fab Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Jim Shannon
Main Page: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)Department Debates - View all Jim Shannon's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Grant Shapps
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: this is a new Act, so we are seeing how it works. As I mentioned a moment ago, final orders are extremely rare. An awful lot of the notifications—particularly the voluntary notifications—are looked at and then passed through very efficiently and very quickly, and I look at them most days of the week in my role. That is not causing any undue bureaucracy; we are looking at the notifications very quickly. The case before us is exceptional, inasmuch as it is retrospective, with the Act having come in only in January. In the end, we have to take a decision, and this House decided that it wanted to look after national security and investment in a sound and sensible way. The Act is performing very well in that regard, and those who criticise have perhaps not looked at—or are perhaps unable to be familiar with—the reasons why we are acting in just a small number of cases.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Secretary of State for taking decisive action to block the sale of Newport Wafer Fab to state-backed Chinese Nexperia on national security grounds. Will he assure the House that he will take all necessary and proportionate action to mitigate the risks to the UK’s economic security now and in the future and to protect the UK from all geopolitical leverage on the part of the Chinese, who are hellbent on taking over vital security companies in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
Grant Shapps
I should point out that we are very keen to see inward investment—a point that also ties in with the question that the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) asked. We are one of the most open countries in the world, as I mentioned, and we are unashamedly pro-business, but we want to make sure that, where necessary, national security is considered. There was a point at which that was not part of the process; I am pleased that it is now. I think that the National Security and Investment Act 2021 is performing well in that regard and that we are getting the right balance between encouraging investment, particularly in non-sensitive areas, and applying the Act where required. The Act is not about China; it looks at every acquisition in its own right.