International Investment

Rebecca Long Bailey Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

The news that Bombardier and Airbus will be forming a partnership will be welcome to the thousands of Airbus and Bombardier staff who are employed in the United Kingdom, but can the Secretary of State confirm that he has received unequivocal assurances from Airbus and Bombardier about the security of UK jobs in the long term? The pairing of two cutting-edge product lines is very exciting for the future of aerospace manufacturing, but it should not be an excuse for the Government to diminish their efforts to ensure that the unfair tariffs imposed in the United States are dropped. Will the Secretary of State give more details about the further action that he proposes to take? For example, has he written to the European Commission?

Britain clearly wants to be open to investment, despite reports that the Office for National Statistics is revising its investment position downwards. However, it would be naive to allow key businesses to be at risk from people who have no interest in the long-term success of a business, its workers and its pensioners, or in the long-term interests of the British economy.

Today’s proposals are welcome, but I have some concerns. First, I am concerned about the delay in the presenting of the proposals. In the last year or so, we have seen mergers that have called into question the adequacy of our merger regime to defend vital economic interests: jobs, research and development, and the significance of the company involved to the supply chain, to name but a few. For instance, our biggest chip manufacturer, ARM, was sold to Japan’s SoftBank. ARM is one of the jewels in our crown, developing cutting-edge chip design and generating thousands of jobs, yet there was no guarantee that R and D—or investment, or jobs—would be protected in the long run. The best that our takeover regime could generate was post-offer undertakings by SoftBank for five years on some of those issues.

That is not an isolated example in the high-tech world. The UK firm Imagination Technologies was sold to Canyon Bridge just a few weeks ago, and our automobile sector has also witnessed the shortcomings of the takeover regime. PSA’s purchase of Opel and Vauxhall raised concerns about jobs and investment. Yet again, our takeover regime was unable to guarantee that those things would be protected, and this week we have heard about the risk of voluntary redundancies. My first question to the Secretary of State is this: why did it take so long, given the manifest deficiencies in the regime to which we drew his attention earlier this year?

My second concern relates to the inadequacy of the proposals. They seem to lower the threshold tests that must take place before the competition authorities and the Government can scrutinise a merger. However, those lower tests apply only to the dual-use and military sector, and to companies that are involved in the design of computer chips and quantum technology. But there are other high-technology sectors that are also in need of the same protections, including life sciences, and food, chemical and automobile manufacturing, to name but a few on a very long list of sectors and business areas that are systemically important to UK plc. These powers would have given no assurances to companies like Unilever, for example, who might try to resist a takeover and have been calling for better safeguards in the takeover regime overall.

Similarly, it is not clear how these powers would have helped in many of the cases I have mentioned where they potentially do apply. Indeed, this morning when the Secretary of State was asked whether these powers would have altered the takeover of ARM, he stated that the turnover of that firm already qualified for scrutiny so this would have made no difference.

So, finally, does the Secretary of State agree that his proposals, while welcome, on the thresholds in particular, fail to protect companies that still fall within them, and will he confirm what further action he proposes to take, because action is desperately needed?

[Greg Clark]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her response and questions. On Bombardier, I am grateful for her recognition—which I hope and think is shared across the House and certainly in Northern Ireland—that this is a very positive step forward. I have been very clear that we will continue to seek to strike out and resolve the trade dispute that has been brought by Boeing. Given what we have been doing during the weeks since the initial complaint was made, I do not think anyone could accuse the Government of being anything other than full-hearted in our attempts to resolve this, and our efforts, with our Canadian Government counterparts, to find a secure source of guarantees for Belfast have been widely welcomed this morning.

In terms of the assurances given, Bombardier and Airbus have clearly said they regard the Belfast wing operation as foundational. They expect to expand the production, which means good prospects for those jobs in Northern Ireland and the supply chain across the United Kingdom. That is extremely good news. We will continue to pursue to the point of resolution the trade dispute. The hon. Lady asked about the European Commissioner: my right hon. Friend the International Trade Secretary has discussed this personally with the European Commissioner for Trade. We will leave no stone unturned in seeking a resolution of this dispute.

On the proposals in the Green Paper on international investment, I would have thought the hon. Lady should welcome the fact that we continue to be the third-biggest destination in the world for overseas investment. One of the major strengths of our economy is that we have a reputation for dependability and openness, and it is important that we preserve that while upgrading our systems of scrutiny to make sure that the national interest is protected, particularly in the case of national security. In saying that, I note that the hon. Lady suggests that there has been some delay in so doing, but the changes we are making were changes that were not made during 13 years when the Labour party had the chance to address these matters. I hope she will respond to the consultation and welcome it.

It is right that the threshold should be dropped in order to admit small companies: everyone knows that as technology develops, smaller companies can have a critical role to play in producing products that are part of a wider system. It is right to have that degree of scrutiny. But when the hon. Lady reads the Green Paper she will see that, in addition to those initial changes, we are consulting on whether there should be a wider set of powers to require the mandatory notification of mergers in other sectors of the economy, and we make some proposals around that. It is right to consult on that, but it would not be right for every single transaction in the economy to be required to go through an administrative process when it does not pose a threat to our national interest. That is the purpose of the consultation, and I hope she will welcome it.

The hon. Lady raises the question of Unilever. One of the features of the proposed takeover of Unilever was that the company—correctly, in my view—did not feel it had the time to prepare a proper defence of itself, given the current takeover rules. Following conversations that we have had, the Takeover Panel is proposing a more substantial period in which, at the request of the target company, it will have longer to prepare that defence. That will be welcomed across the economy. This is a consultation by the Takeover Panel so we will wait for that to conclude, but I have welcomed it as a positive step forward.