Nissan: Sunderland
Debate between Lord Beamish and Greg Clark(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Greg Clark
As I said earlier, it is unambiguously good news, and I hope that the whole House will welcome it.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Many people in my North Durham constituency work at Nissan, so I warmly welcome the news and thank the Minister for his involvement. If he has done a special deal for Nissan, good. I just look forward to many more for the north-east companies that rely on exports.
Greg Clark
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words. I do believe in being active and vigorous and in meeting companies and understanding the challenges that they face; I make no apology for that. My whole ministerial team will be active in securing investments for this country.
Local Government Finance
Debate between Lord Beamish and Greg Clark(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Greg Clark
I certainly will. I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for his advice on this matter. I think Leicestershire will make a particularly strong case for a review of the match between needs and resources. Rather than keeping him hanging on, I can tell him that the transitional funding for Leicestershire will be £3.3 million.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
For the benefit of the PPSs, my local authority is County Durham. It is a bit off, Mr Speaker, that the Secretary of State has all the figures, but they have not been released to councils, which means we have no way of scrutinising his answers.
I wish to raise the point also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) about the Better Care Fund. I agree with the Secretary of State that this issue affects all councils, but County Durham has a low council tax base, as most of its properties are in bands A or B. He just said this will be taken care of in the formula. Will he meet me and north-east MPs whose councils are disadvantaged by not being able to raise the cash that larger authorities, such as Westminster, can?