John Bercow
Main Page: John Bercow (Speaker - Buckingham)Shipbuilding
John Bercow Excerpts
Mr Prisk
I will make progress, if I may.
The Technology Strategy Board is helping to co-ordinate a future technology road map, and UK Trade and Investment has now, as I understand it, made marine a priority sector in our trade and inward investment programmes, which I find extraordinary. It is putting marine right where it needs to be, shipbuilding included.
Next month, my Department will be hosting an exhibition at Victoria street for the UK marine industries, where we can at last showcase some of the brightest and best products and services in the industry. I extend an invitation to the hon. Member for Glasgow North West and all other Members of the House.
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise for interrupting the Minister, but may I gently say to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil)—
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman sought to intervene on a number of occasions. He was perfectly entitled to seek to intervene, just as the Minister was entitled to decline to take the interventions. The use of electronic devices in the Chamber is supposed to be undertaken without impairing decorum. To seek to intervene one minute, and then very ostentatiously and blatantly—
Mr Speaker
Order. To seek to intervene one minute, and then very ostentatiously and blatantly to be fiddling with such a device is a discourtesy, and I simply ask the hon. Gentleman not to do it. There is nothing more to say on the subject.
Mr Prisk
I cannot promise the hon. Member for Glasgow North West that we will return to large-scale shipbuilding on the Clyde. I do not think he expected me to say otherwise. He and I both know that we now live in a different era, but a resurgent industrial sector, including shipbuilding, lies at the heart of our plans to try to rebalance the economy and ensure that we have a more resilient model for long-term growth, and to show respect for the quality of the work done both now and in the past by the men and women who work in the shipyards. Despite what some people think, this country remains one of the world’s leading manufacturing nations and, as far as I am concerned, marine engineering remains a vital element of that.
We are a maritime nation, and I believe that, with a clear strategy, with investment in technology and with our commitment to skills, we can ensure that the future for this industry can once again be positive.
Question put and agreed to.