Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Garnier and Stephen Crabb

Thursday 12th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mark Garnier]

The leader of the Liberal Democrats raises a very important point in respect of looking at the statistics. He is absolutely right that fresh investment that comes into this country that creates and safeguards jobs must be disaggregated from, say, stock market transactions, where there is a significant investment in that type of thing. We are looking very carefully at how to disaggregate these two types of investment to get a much clearer picture, but he raises an important point and I assure him that the Department’s economists are looking at this.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

In the 12 months since the EU referendum in 2016, 32 Israeli companies have invested in new business ventures in the UK, bringing an increase in capital investment of 32% from that country. Does that not demonstrate, first, a strong vote of confidence in the UK economy, and, secondly, that Israel should be a natural partner for any future free trade agreement?