Graham Stuart
MP for Beverley and Holderness · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I hope and expect that we can move forward in the right way and get the balance right between being overly prescriptive to the banking industry and setting a clear sense of direction to make sure that no one is left behind, as so many Members have set out.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on securing this debate.”
“Is my hon. Friend as astonished as I am that the Minister—I know she is new to her post—has come here to propose a six-month extension of the movement of costs from bills to the Exchequer and cannot tell the Committee how much money that will cost?”
“The Minister is being most generous again. I did not ask her about protecting consumers from energy price shocks; I asked about a clear, unequivocal manifesto pledge to reduce household energy bills by £300. She, like her predecessors, refuses to address it directly. It was a clear promise.”
“Banking hubs themselves came out of an industry response from the NatWest executive. Does the Minister agree that we must present the information from the Lloyd review to the banking groups, be clear about what we want, and give them the opportunity to respond and provide a solution, as they did with banking hubs, so that we can perhaps a…”
“I am pleased to say that Lloyds listened and, as of this morning, people can deposit cheques at those places. These issues being raised by Members across the House today are important. I trust that given the timing of the Richard Lloyd report, the Minister in her seat will make sure that they are be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.”
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“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that. I think the people of London want a Mayor who makes things happen, who is a champion of business and who recognises that, for all the wealth in London, there are too many people left behind. We need a Mayor who gets on with the job—one who does not act like a commentator but who actually acts like a leader.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his question, on which he is right. He is constantly championing the interests of his area, not least because of the need for regeneration. Free ports offer that opportunity. We are in constant talks with The Bristol Port Company, and I know that he is working closely with the West of England Mayor to make sure that that regeneration and the benefits of FDI are brought to his part of the country, with all the prosperity and employment benefits that that will bring.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her question. The consultation closes tonight and we are determined to get the right balance. We are clear that we are going to have a tariff regime that benefits UK consumers and business, and allows us to align ourselves most effectively to where 90% of global growth is expected by the International Monetary Fund to be in the next five years or so, which is outside Europe.”
“I would have hoped that, after sufficient time in the House, the hon. Lady might have understood how a consultation worked. The consultation closes today, and I cannot comment on a consultation that has not yet closed. What I can tell her is that, as she will be delighted to hear, under this Government the UK has attracted more FDI than any other country in Europe. Indeed, we have attracted more FDI in aggregate than Germany and France combined. If she and her colleagues on the Labour Front Bench were to support business and enterprise in the way we do, instead of opposing them, we might see more jobs and prosperity.”
“As I said in an earlier answer, I was pleased to meet Northern Ireland representatives in No. 10 Downing Street yesterday. When I visited Belfast last year, I learnt more about the phenomenal tech, and in particular cyber, capability there is in Belfast. The Department is determined to make sure that the message of how investable and how strong Northern Ireland is, and what great capability it has, is understood through all our posts in countries around the world.”
“I thank my hon. Friend, who characteristically puts her finger on an important point. Services have too often not had sufficient focus in trade agreements. We are very much looking to put financial services, data and other elements at the heart of our trade policy, which will be great for the City of London. However, it is important to note that there are more people working in financial services in the northern powerhouse than there are in the whole of Frankfurt.”
“We are working with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to maximise the overall economic impact of our world-leading renewable energy sector, including that of exports. The Department undertakes a range of promotion activities, including running trade missions and dedicated workshops.”
“All investments by the prosperity fund are examined against the raft of UK Government policies, objectives and aims, and we do that in all cases in each continent of the world.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He will be aware that the offshore wind sector deal, published in March 2019, sets an ambition of increasing exports fivefold to £2.6 billion by 2030. He and I, in our respective constituencies, have seen the transformation of the economics of offshore wind. We are now seeing UK Export Finance, for instance, financing major investments in Taiwan and other parts of the world, with UK exports and UK expertise, not least from my hon. Friend’s constituency, at the heart of that. I would be delighted to meet him.”
“The Government are investing £2.5 billion in clean growth innovation by 2021, as set out in the industrial strategy. The offshore wind sector deal commits the sector to investing up to £250 million, building a stronger UK supply chain. It is a transition—a transition away from fossil fuels to cleaner technologies—and we intend to drive that ever faster.”
“Foreign investment in film and TV is booming. Just last month, I met representatives of the US’s Blackhall Studios, and they unveiled plans for a major investment in conjunction with Reading University, which should bring £500 million a year in inward investment to the UK. That studio alone is expected to employ 3,000 people and further strengthen the UK industry as a creative and economic triumph.”
“Smoothing access to the US through an FTA will help Bolton, and having such an excellent and film-ready advocate for Bolton as my hon. Friend, I look forward to him appearing, perhaps even with a speaking role, in future productions. It is notable that, in the past two years alone, we have seen the BBC, Netflix and Sky all using Bolton as locations for major productions, including “Peaky Blinders”, which I can certainly see him in; the “Last Tango in Halifax”, where he may be a younger love interest; “The Stranger”, although I know he never tries to be; and “Cobra”, which perhaps suggests his action credentials.”
“Now that we have departed the EU, we are determined to ensure that we remain the leading production hub globally, as we increasingly have been in film, not least thanks to the skill, expertise and beauty of the people and the places, including in the hon. Lady’s constituency.”
“UK exports are at a record high, with the latest figures showing exports of £689 billion—up 5% on 2018. We are committed to doing even more, building on the measures in our export strategy. Just last month, we launched a new business support campaign, helping businesses of all sizes to fulfil their exporting potential.”
“The hon. Gentleman is quite right to highlight the issue of trade’s role in parts of the world where human rights are being breached. Right across the Department, we seek to ensure that all such considerations are taken into account, while recognising the need to engage with regimes that may have less than perfect Governments, for the benefit of the people there. It is a balance that we take very seriously, and I look forward to further discussion with him to get it right.”
“We could look at Japan, or we could look at Mercosur, which took 20 years of negotiation. Some say that the UK shorn of the heft of the EU will be less able to do deals. There are ways in which that would be true, but fundamentally, with agility, as many countries have shown, we can do more deals more quickly and, most importantly, bring greater prosperity, employment and opportunity to my right hon. Friend’s constituents and mine as a result of the UK having its own independent trade policy for the first time in 40-odd years.”
“I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), who sets an example—not least to the party over there, the SNP—in championing the interests of Scottish workers and Scottish business, regardless of politics. [Laughter.] The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) laughs, but all too often she sits there and says—as she did just now, chuntering from a sedentary position—“We don’t want it”: she does not want more resource from the UK Government to support Scottish business. If ever we had an example of how the separatist SNP put that single agenda ahead of the interests of the Scottish people, that was it. Thank the Lord that we have Members like my right hon. Friend to stand up for us.”
“My right hon. Friend is correct to highlight the importance of Heathrow and transatlantic links with the US and beyond—not only for exports, but for foreign direct investment. I am sure that he and the rest of the House will be kept informed as Government policy develops.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her question and for her continued championing of the UK steel industry. We work closely with colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to promote steel. Since 2013, the Government have provided more than £600 million of support, including £300 million for energy cost relief, £250 million for innovation and £66 million for new technologies.”
“With our colleagues at UK Export Finance, we established a steel export taskforce and we are very keen to promote steel exports. The hon. Lady is right that we should do everything we can to ensure that British steel is used in the UK. I am happy to work, both here and abroad, to make sure we support the steel industry going forward.”
“My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is championing the merits of free ports across the Government, in conjunction with Treasury Ministers, including the Exchequer Secretary, who is the constituency neighbour of my right hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill).”
“My right hon. Friend is right. That blue wave was also a cleansing wave that is allowing new thinking. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced our free port policy in Teesport in August. We recognise that more free ports, not least in the Teesport area, can create jobs, rejuvenate communities and boost local economies. We will continue the job creation miracle that has gone on under this Government and, with my right hon. Friend’s help, free ports will be an important part of that.”
“A day when the hon. Gentleman rises above party politics is one when we know a significant shift has occurred in the body politic, but I will try to take the question in the spirit in which it was intended. We are consulting and engaging widely, including with devolved areas of the country, to ensure we come up with exactly the right package to be able to assure even the most sceptical, albeit now non-party political people like the hon. Member, that free ports really can galvanise further job development and prosperity.”
“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is about tailoring the policy to the particular, ensuring we have something that does not lead to distortion but does lead to additional inward investment. We have gained more foreign direct investment in this country than any other European nation. That is one of the fundamental reasons why we have more people in work as a percentage of the population than the US, Germany or France, and why we have the lowest youth unemployment in our history. I am determined that the free port policy will be well-tailored to the individual circumstances of each area, while ensuring there is no distortion.”
“It may come as news to Labour, or at least its Front Benchers, that we will not be a member of the customs union as we were in 2012. Leaving the EU provides the opportunity to do things differently. We are taking a new cross-Government approach to developing ambitious free ports to ensure that towns and cities across the UK can begin to benefit from the trade opportunities that Brexit brings. It is about time that Labour Front Benchers started to recognise the upside to Brexit instead of always talking this country down.”
“The Department’s high potential opportunities programme, which aims to identify and promote a range of foreign direct investment opportunities throughout the UK, is currently working with the Enterprise M3 local enterprise partnership and others in Guildford to highlight the commercial opportunities offered by the video game and 5G clusters in that region, which are world leading.”
“I spent months working with colleagues across Government to deliver the UK-Africa Investment Summit, which took place on Monday. I am delighted with the result and proud of the work of so many officials in making it happen. We have announced 27 commercial deals worth more than £6.5 billion from across African markets, but, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, there is enormous potential for more.”
“I am working closely, as are my colleagues across Government, to make sure that the freeport policy will be successful, and will help bring regeneration, jobs, opportunity and prosperity to every part of this United Kingdom.”
“My hon. Friend is correct in his assertion that freeports have the potential to drive growth in towns and cities across the UK, enabling them to make the most of Brexit opportunities. We are working hard to design a model that delivers optimal benefit for the UK and specific locations. Where appropriate, we will work with the devolved Administrations on this matter, but it would be helpful if the SNP showed more enthusiasm for something that could make a big difference.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend—no one in the House works harder to promote their area than him. Freeports offer an opportunity to unleash enterprise. We want to set forth all the principles and wealth creation that the Labour party stands against, and to allow my hon. Friend’s constituents, and the communities he represents, to prosper and grow through free enterprise, and we will carry on doing that.”
“The hon. Lady makes a serious and important point. We are working hard and closely with our Treasury colleagues and others to ensure that we design the policy in the right way so that we minimise displacement and bring in additional activity and prosperity. We do not expect, and we will not design, a system that will damage those ports that do not become freeports.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on working so hard to promote businesses in his area. I am delighted that our performance in dealing with licence applications is good, and I pay tribute to those who work in the Export Control Joint Unit. Some 80% of applications are concluded within 20 days, and 96% within 60 days. In some cases, complex issues have to be assessed, but we will do everything that we can to facilitate and accelerate the decision on the case raised by my hon. Friend.”
“My right hon. Friend is quite right. The design of the policy is vital. Optimising existing strength is an important part of ensuring that the policy is a success.”
“As I represent a constituency in the Humber area, I will continue, without giving any special status, to ensure that we liaise with my hon. Friend, but he is so right. Conservative Members are focused on trying to find policies that open up investment and bring in further jobs, but the Labour party’s manifesto sets out policies that would destroy inward investment and cost tens of thousands of jobs.”
“As well as birthday congratulations to the hon. Gentleman, I have other good news: we are taking steps to support businesses in all scenarios and to ensure that, with or without a deal, we minimise any negative disruption. But as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State just said—this is an appeal to Members right across this House—we will have the opportunity to vote for a Saturday sitting, and we will have the opportunity, I hope, to see a deal put through that will mean that we can move forward. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, finally, will support and respect the decision of the British people in 2016.”
“I am disturbed to hear about this pattern of behaviour whereby the UK Government are allegedly inhibiting the Scottish Government’s promoting Scotland. We perhaps do not have time to discuss that right now, but I would be delighted if the hon. Gentleman wrote to me setting out instances of that. I promise to investigate them fully. I have never heard such allegations before, and I would be interested to hear about them and investigate them, if he can provide them.”
“That may be one element in explaining how we have gone from a youth unemployment rate that was 45% up by the time the Labour Government left office to one that is now at the lowest level since records began. While we talk about trade and investment we must remember what it is all about, which is the quality of life—the living standards, prosperity and security—of this nation. That is why this Government and Conservative Prime Ministers since 2010 have had such priorities. The numbers are there. People can give all the speeches they like, but if we follow the numbers, we will see the transformation that has been brought about. That is reflected in outcomes—the reduction in unemployment and increases in employment.”
“If we look at foreign direct investment, the stock value of that represented as a percentage of GDP was a little over 20% in 1990. Now it is more than 66%. As we have just heard from the Opposition spokesman, it is worth noting that, as we neared the end of the last Labour Government, France came up nearly to meet the level of foreign direct investment stock held in this United Kingdom; whereas, I am pleased to say, on last year’s figures from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the UK’s stock of foreign direct investment—with the hundreds of thousands of jobs that result from it in the United Kingdom—is now greater than that of France and Germany combined.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez) on securing the debate and on her excellent opening to it. The subject, as we heard in many excellent and some peculiar contributions, is an interesting one. Our success in trade and investment will be crucial to delivering a more prosperous, stable and secure future for the country as we leave the EU. There has been a massive change in the importance of trade and investment in the global economy and in the UK economy. That is one of the things to be grasped. In 1990, exports constituted a little more than 20% of GDP, but now they are more than 30%. We have the aspiration of reaching 35%, making us one of the greatest exporting nations in the G7.”
“I am grateful to the shadow Minister for that intervention. The danger is in selectively seeking those things. On every possible measure, we see the UK— [ Interruption. ] I hope the hon. Gentleman will stop barracking; he knows what is coming. Even though he pretends not to, he must have seen the UNCTAD numbers—the official UN numbers—for 2018. What did they show? They showed that in 2018, according to the UN, the global stock of foreign direct investment—the yearly amount of total flows—fell.”
“We should look at greenfield and new start-ups, not someone buying a factory. What difference does that make? What about creating a new one? Let’s look at that.” Who looks at that? That would be fDi Markets. What did it show last year? From memory, it showed that the UK got 1,268 projects, that France temporarily overtook Germany, with 580 projects—well done President Macron, who has put a lot of work into that—and that Germany had 560 projects. In other words, despite Brexit uncertainty, in 2018 the UK had more greenfield investment projects than Germany and France combined. On what basis would anyone other than the most devout and misguided socialist try to suggest that those figures are not good?”
“Gentleman and his party play politics, we deliver the investments that lead to prosperity and jobs. If he is interested in going further into the subject, he should look at Ernst & Young and the pattern over the last few years. What have we seen? We have seen an increase in investments outside London and the south-east, and an increase in the share of the FDI going into manufacturing, which has been maintained and strengthened in this country. That is the exact opposite of the picture that the hon. Gentleman tried to lay out. It is there in every figure—from the OECD, UNCTAD, the Economist Intelligence Unit, Deloitte and fDi Markets. That is a fascinating one. Some people say, “If you include mergers and acquisitions, and you include intra-company transfers, that is not real FDI.”
“It is because of the business-friendly policies that we have put in place. As the shadow Minister is feeling so aggressive, I put it to him: in what possible parallel universe in which there is increasing competition for mobile global investment, with the massive number of jobs and the prosperity that brings, would jacking up corporation tax rates lead to more jobs, more opportunities and more prosperity for people in this country? That is the trade and investment strategy of Labour. We do not need to think just about what Labour’s current policies will do; we can look back at every previous Labour Government. By the end of the 2000s, France was just about overtaking the UK; now we have more than twice as much as France. Just think of the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of jobs—I am most interested in that number. While the hon.”
“The overall stock fell. The hon. Gentleman is talking about flows; he should try and get to grips with this. Maybe this will be a useful seminar for him to do so. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the stock line for Europe, which is the accumulated level—not at the flow line, as flows go up and down year by year and are essentially volatile; they always have been and I project they always will be—he will find that it fell in Europe too. The net amount fell; there was net disinvestment in Europe and in the world. What happened in the UK? It went up again, but not quite as quickly as it did before. It is the global context. By every possible measure—flow, stock, greenfield, mergers and acquisitions—we lead Europe. We have strengthened our position in Europe. Why has that happened?”
“People can look at our FinTech bridges. We lead the world on FinTech—financial technology. It is enormously valuable, and we are creating FinTech bridges with a number of other countries. For instance, we are deepening our engagement with Hong Kong and Australia. In both cases, the FCA has been a fundamental part of the team as we try to ensure that start-ups there can more easily come to the UK, and vice versa. It is precisely that kind of opening up of markets that is so important. I am not sure that I have ever given a speech from my iPad before. When the screen goes blank—”
“These countries do not want to be seen primarily as aid recipients. They want to be seen as countries with great entrepreneurs, great technology and great capability. That is why, after the Prime Minister’s speech last year in Cape Town, I am helping to organise the Africa investment summit on 20 January 2020. It is precisely to ensure that, cross-Government, we are able to support increased investment in Africa and take advantage of the opportunities there. My hon. Friend touched on the subject of regulators. Whether further changes are required in their missions as defined by Government is something that I will leave for others to wrestle with, but I can say that our regulators really are stepping up to the mark. The Financial Conduct Authority, with whose representatives I have met, is making a major difference.”
“I was pleased to meet the Governor of São Paulo, which itself has more than 30% of the GDP of Brazil. There is a lot more to be done at that more granular level in order to identify barriers and overcome them. My hon. Friend made an interesting point about language. Given our national weaknesses on foreign languages, I hope that officials may be able to follow up on that point. She also touched on the DIT working more closely with the FCO and DFID. We are absolutely trying to do that. I am delighted that we are becoming an official development assistance Department. We have to bring trade and development together. That is how people get out of poverty. This involves so many countries. There is now the Ghana Beyond Aid initiative; I visited Ghana’s investment conference in London last year.”
“Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster. She asked about the 100 days. We will continue to prepare for no deal to be the outcome, which is not the avowed intent of either of the leadership contenders for the Conservative party. We prepared and were in a good position ahead of 29 March, and we are working with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to be able to meet questions coming in from businesses. We are ready to meet any surge in demand at that level. My hon. Friend asked about state-level engagement with the US. The Secretary of State and I met with Senators from Florida and Texas the other day. As we expand and strengthen the Department’s reach, we recognise that it is not all about working at the national and federal level, whether in the US or elsewhere, such as in Brazil.”
“] I am now talking about flows as opposed to stocks, so it is repetition, but about a different aspect of something that I hope the hon. Gentleman would take an interest in. FDI flows fell by 19% globally and by 73% in continental Europe. What happened to FDI into the UK? The flows increased by 20%. So much for the negative effects of Brexit uncertainty. [Official Report, 3 September 2019, Vol. 664, c. 2MC.] The pace of change in the global economy is increasing but, for the agile, opportunities abound. The Department for International Trade provides the platform to give the UK a unique trade advantage, by locating export promotion, trade finance, trade remedies, export licensing and international negotiations all in a single Government Department. I want to respond to some points made by my hon.”
“Nearly 111,000 firms exported goods in the first quarter of 2019, which is 5,000 more than in the same period last year. I have talked about the foreign direct investment numbers, but the latest figures from UNCTAD show that the UK hit a record high of almost £1.5 trillion in FDI stock by the end of last year, which is more than Germany and France combined, creating 76,000 new jobs and safeguarding 15,000 more. That was in one year and in marked contrast to 2010, when France was close to overtaking us. To put the FDI numbers into further context, UNCTAD’s figures show that FDI flows—flows not stocks; I hope the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) knows the difference—fell by 19% globally in 2018. [ Interruption.”