AstraZeneca (Pfizer Bid)

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I think that is a very good statement of where we are. We are indeed trying to encourage business. We are looking 10 years ahead—that is the whole point of the industrial strategy and indeed why it is successful and why business welcomes it. To use my hon. Friend’s word, there is no question of protectionism in this area.

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State emphasise that the Government can and should intervene under the Enterprise Act 2002 in order to protect the public interest, given that AstraZeneca is a key national champion in the key pharmaceutical sector in which Britain is a world leader? Does he accept that this issue should be settled not on the basis of the tax inversion interests of a US multinational or an indiscriminate open market ideology, but solely on the basis of preserving and strengthening the UK’s scientific base and highly skilled British jobs—promises to preserve which have often been dishonoured by previous predators?

[Vince Cable]

There is nothing in the Enterprise Act 2002 —in retrospect, this is probably regrettable—that refers in any way to the issues that the right hon. Gentleman has described. I was part of those debates; I think he probably was, too. The only areas in which a public interest intervention is allowed under that legislation relate to national security and media plurality. Subsequently, banks were added; as they were overwhelmingly domiciled in the UK, that fell outside European legislation. Those are the very narrow grounds on which the existing legislation allows intervention.