Critical National Infrastructure: Ownership

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Spicer]

My Lords, surely one of the good things about foreigners owning bits of our infrastructure is that they cannot take these bits away with them—

[Lord Bilimoria]

My Lords—

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

We shall hear from the Cross Benches first.

[Lord Bilimoria]

My Lords, today the former Governor of the Bank of England has taken his seat, and we welcome him. His successor is a Canadian. How many other countries would have a foreign national as the governor of their national central bank? We do. Do not the Minister and the Government think that we should be proud that we are one of the most open economies in the world, and that that is a great strength to this country? Regardless of that, and on the other hand, how much longer are the Government going to dither and procrastinate about increasing our airport capacity in London?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I shall exclude the second half of that question from my response. I rather hoped that the noble Lord would welcome the degree of foreign investment in our automobile industry. Ten to 15 years ago, many would have sneered at the whole idea of Indian investment in our automobile industry. The recent announcement of the expansion of investment in Jaguar Land Rover is extremely welcome for the prospects for British exports.