Baroness Berger
Main Page: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Berger's debates with the Department for Education
(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Vince Cable
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman’s work, and to the workers and managers in Swindon who have made a success of the plant. As many of us remember, many of them went on to part-time working and long vacations to keep the plant alive, and it is now succeeding. I have discussed trade barriers with the Keidanren in Japan and with others. There are a lot of non-tariff barriers in the automotive industry. We must deal with them if we are to have a genuine free trade agreement with Japan.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
The green investment bank was first announced in the coalition agreement. Why, two and a half years later, is it not up and running properly?
Vince Cable
The green investment bank is up and running properly. The parliamentary legislation is being put in place, and the hon. Lady has the opportunity to debate it. The team in my Department that is overseeing the bank has already disbursed significant amounts of money to energy conservation and waste projects. The bank is a success, and it will expand considerably over the next few years when it has achieved state aid approval.