Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Fell Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I think that is a complete misrepresentation of all the work that the Government have done to help customers. There are the winter fuel payments, as the hon Gentleman well knows, and £300 for 8 million pensioners is worth £2 billion. We have the warm home discount, we have cold weather payments. We have a full range of measures that will help off-grid customers in a difficult time.

[Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)]

8. What support his Department is providing to life sciences clusters across the UK.

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

12. What steps he is taking to develop the UK’s life sciences sector.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (George Freeman)]

As a result of this Government’s long-term life science strategy, now a 10-year strategy, I am delighted to be able to share with the House that the life science sector has grown, in terms of private investment, by 1,000% in the last 10 years and is creating jobs all around the UK—in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales. At the heart of our strategy for the innovation nation, in our life science vision last summer we set out a plan, with £5 billion in the comprehensive spending review of funding for life science research, and we intend to support those clusters all around the UK.

[Simon Fell]

I welcome the effort that my hon. Friend has given to developing this important policy and his characteristic kindness in engaging with me on it. Clusters will be crucial to improving UK resilience and building our manufacturing capacity. In Ulverston we have an established base with GSK, but I want to see that grow, with new entrants like Lakes BioScience coming in, building high-skilled jobs and the supply chain. With that in mind, may I ask how the strategy will apply to south Cumbria? May I also invite him to the sunlit uplands of Ulverston to visit and see for himself?

[George Freeman]

I thank my hon. Friend and pay tribute to his tireless campaigning for Barrow and Furness and on this issue. I understand well the concerns following GSK’s movement from the Ulverston site. I would just make this point: quite often such moves of pharma from one site to another create an opportunity. As the Minister for Life Sciences, I launched the life science opportunity zones and we created thriving clusters at Alderley Park and Sandwich; it would be my ambition to do the same up at Ulverston. I very much look forward to coming up and visiting, and my officials are working closely on that as we speak.