Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateNigel Mills
Main Page: Nigel Mills (Conservative - Amber Valley)Department Debates - View all Nigel Mills's debates with the Department for International Trade
(4 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe do not see these things as mutually exclusive. We are now going to be an independent sovereign nation, seeking free trade agreements around the world, liberating British business, with the opportunity to tap in to some of the fastest-growing economies around the world. We want a good deal with the EU and with partners around the world, to the mutual benefit and prosperity of all our citizens.
Winning further foreign direct investment is crucial to the delivery of rising living standards and the levelling up of left-behind communities up and down the land. Companies such as Ferrero, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), which exports wonderful, quality chocolate all over the world, will potentially benefit, as will other UK chocolate producers, as a result of our UK-US free trade agreement.
I thank the Minister for that answer, and I join him in valuing the investment that Ferrero has brought to the old Thorntons factory. Most of the large employers in my constituency have had FDI at some point or other in their history, so what more can the Government do to ensure that that investment is spread out evenly across the country, and is not just focused in London and the south-east?
I thank my hon. Friend for that question, because FDI is so important to the UK. Foreign-owned firms represent only 1% of businesses, yet they contribute 22% of economic output and deliver 15% of employment. My Department uses our regional teams right around the country, and in 110 countries around the world, to make sure that we get that message out. Only yesterday, I hosted a meeting with regional leaders from right across the UK at No. 10 to show the importance we attach, as my hon. Friend does, to sharing these FDI benefits right across the country.