Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to support manufacturers in the North West.

We are working with UK industry to create the right conditions for competitive, world leading manufacturing businesses to flourish and grow across the UK. We are supporting all UK manufacturers by cutting business taxes, slashing red tape and investing in new scientific infrastructure on a record scale. Through our Industrial Strategy, we will make sure that we are using all the tools we have to stimulate growth in places such as the North West. That means using our record investments in infrastructure to unlock growth in every part of the country; using the major new investment in research to support innovative manufacturing businesses across the country; and encouraging inward investment into the parts of the country where we need to get growth going faster.

Over the past few years, we have invested over £1.5 billion through the Local Growth Fund, in the North West for projects to boost local economies and the Regional Growth Fund that supports eligible projects and programmes raising private sector investment to create economic growth and lasting employment, has since its launch in 2010, resulted in over 46,000 jobs being contracted, of which 21,426 are in manufacturing.