Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Glen and Sarah Atherton

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

What I believe in is a Government who make targeted support available to the most vulnerable. The Chancellor and this Government have on a number of occasions used fiscal events and bespoke interventions to support those vulnerable people. We have always been clear that we will not be able to ameliorate the full extent of the challenges facing the country, but we will continue to strive for greater growth and productivity that will bring us back to where we need to be.

[Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)]

8. What fiscal steps his Department is taking to encourage levelling up across the UK.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Glen and Sarah Atherton

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)]

The Chancellor set out the Government’s strategy on financial services to the House in November—a vision of a sector that is more open, more technologically advanced and a world leader in the use of green finance, serving the communities and citizens of this country. Since then, we passed the Financial Services Act 2021 in April to begin the necessary reforms to our framework, and we have agreed text with the EU for a regulatory co-operation forum.

[Sarah Atherton]

There is no doubt that all should be done to support British businesses to export, no more so than in my constituency of Wrexham, which houses one of the largest trading estates in the UK. Businesses are keen to grasp these opportunities—none more so than Matclad, a specialist clay brick slip manufacturer, which is already reaping the benefits of exporting. Does my hon. Friend agree that schemes such as the parliamentary export programme, which I recently took part in, are an excellent opportunity?

[John Glen]

I am very happy to agree with my hon. Friend. I experienced that myself with my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray). The parliamentary export programme is an excellent way of getting that ambition to export out across the country, and it is just another example of this Government’s commitment to grow exports. My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton) may also be interested to know that I shall be visiting Cardiff tomorrow to meet the first cohort of FinTech Wales’s FinTech Foundry, a new accelerator programme that will support firms as they seek to build their footprint.