Newport Wafer Fab

Lord German Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I do not have that information to hand. It would depend on what firms the noble Lord refers to and what form of suppliers they were. There are many hundreds of companies that serve some of these large manufacturing plants. As I said in response to an earlier question, we understand the importance of semiconductor manufacturers. We support this by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and we support the commercialisation of projects under the Compound Catapult, and we will continue to do so.

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, the suspicion locally is that the security part of the review is over, and the hunt is on to buy up shares for Nexperia to create a Chinese-UK company. Given the importance of this to electric vehicle manufacturing, of which there is a massive need at present, and to jobs to be created locally, does the Minister agree that this should be the Government’s prime initiative, and that we need a speedy solution so that investment can take place?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I know the concerns locally about the investment. I have spoken to Newport’s MP about this, and she expressed her views on the takeover. As I have said, we have taken all those factors into consideration, particularly that of national security, which the National Security Adviser is currently considering this takeover on, and we will reach a decision on that shortly.