Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts
Wednesday 4th May 2016

(8 years, 7 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Stephen Kinnock Portrait Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
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Q10. Tata Steel has indicated that it wishes to complete the sale of its UK assets by the middle of June and that it wants a preferred bidder in place by the end of this month. Does the Prime Minister really think that that is a realistic timeframe and that there will be a credible process of due diligence? What steps is the Prime Minister taking to ensure that Tata Steel delivers on its promise to be a responsible seller?

Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton Portrait The Prime Minister
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The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about this. The positive news is that the deadline yesterday was met by a number of serious inquiries of interest into buying all of Tata, and that is good news. Obviously, we now need to work intensively with Tata and those buyers to get that list down to those who seriously intend to bid for the business. The hon. Gentleman is right that it is a very short timetable. He asks what we are doing, and what we are doing is talking intensively with Tata to ensure that it does everything it can to make sure that this is a serious sales process.