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

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they (1) were consulted by, or (2) have engaged with, SoftBank on the sale by that company of the intellectual property of Arm Holdings to a Chinese subsidiary of SoftBank; and what assessment they have made of the consistency of that sale with their position that "Britain is open for business".

The UK is open for business - it is our ambition that the country remains one of the most attractive destinations in the world for inwards investment.

The Government was not consulted by the Softbank group, however as part of our regular engagement with ARM, the Government was aware of the proposal for its Chinese subsidiary to enter into a joint venture.

Sale of the subsidiary did not breach undertakings given at the time of Softbank’s acquisition of ARM.