Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

5. What support his Department has provided to university and business research partnerships in the last 12 months.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

We want to see the best possible links between universities and businesses. The Chancellor recently tripled public investment in our UK research partnership investment fund, which promotes investment in shared research and development facilities on our campuses. Winning bids must include sponsorship from businesses or charities, so the scheme will deliver more than £1 billion of new R and D investment in total.

[Stephen Mosley]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s response and highlight for him the success we are achieving in Chester with the Riverside innovation centre and work between businesses and the university of Chester. May I ask him to visit the innovation centre in the near future?

[Mr Willetts]

I have happy memories of visiting the university of Chester when Opposition spokesman and so will certainly try to visit as a Minister. My hon. Friend describes just one example of the reason why the World Economic Forum recently placed the UK second out of 144 countries for the quality of university and business collaboration in R and D.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and anyone else concerned about this problem. I meet regularly with Jaguar Land Rover, as does the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon). This is not an issue that it has raised with us so far, but we are happy to pursue the matter. I want to reinforce what the hon. Gentleman said, however. This is a magnificent company investing £2 billion over this decade and creating high-level employment. The Government have made a substantial contribution to support it through the regional growth fund, support for the engine plant in Wolverhampton, which is now getting off the ground, and in other respects.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

T8. Chester has seen record numbers of new businesses being set up in the past year, with 305 being registered during the first six months of the year—a 323% increase on the year before. Does the Minister agree that these and other recent figures show that the work that the Government are doing to encourage private sector growth and redress the north-south imbalance is beginning to deliver results in the north-west of England?

[Michael Fallon]

That is encouraging news and shows the strength of the small business sector in the north-west in particular. The key to encouraging small businesses is to continue to cut back the burden of red tape imposed by the last Government, to reduce the level of business taxation imposed by the last Government and to ensure that they have full access to finance through the banking system.