Oral Answers to Questions

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[George Hollingbery]

All I can say at the moment is that anything that can be done to increase free trade in the future should be looked at. Indeed, free ports have been looked at and I know that my hon. Friend has been a great champion of the idea. We will continue those discussions.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

Supporting our regional economies through trade agreements is about more than just growing exports and opening markets to our producers; trade agreements should also be used to unlock and encourage investment across the UK. A recent report by the Centre for Towns shows that in 2017 nearly 60% of foreign direct investment went to the UK’s biggest cities, that 70% of that went to London, and that towns and communities elsewhere have seen FDI decline or remain flat. When will the Government listen to Labour and take the action needed to rebalance the economy and attract FDI right across the country?

[George Hollingbery]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and, indeed, the whole Labour Front-Bench team for our associations and discussions during the year, which have, on the whole, been friendly and constructive.

The hon. Lady will be glad to hear that the Government absolutely understand the issue. Our foreign direct investment programme has begun to look at pre-packaging offers out in the regions, particularly in smaller towns, which quite a lot of major potential investors will not know of—they will not know about the skillsets there or about the availability of land and so on. They have been pre-packed into larger blocks so that foreign direct investors can be presented with them as places where they can take their investment outside London and the major cities.