UK Modern Industrial Strategy

Alison Bennett Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I thoroughly welcome my right hon. Friend’s question and thank her for all her support for our determination to make sure we have the competitive automotive sector that we all want. She is right that the changes to the ZEV mandate are part of this. They were brought forward because of the pressing urgency—I was not happy with the situation that I inherited from the Conservative party. We closely review the level of consumer demand in the sector and are always willing to work with her and the tremendous businesses in her constituency to make sure we are getting this country’s markets to where they need to be.

[Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)]

Consort Frozen Foods, which is based partly in Burgess Hill in my constituency, distribute ice creams across the UK. It does some distribution overseas as well, but I met its representatives recently because they really wanted to understand how best to access more markets. What advice does the Secretary of State have for Consort Frozen Foods?

Given the comments of the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), I also wonder whether the Secretary of State would like to reflect on the fact that the hon. Member’s first role after being elected was as Boris Johnson’s net zero business champion.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

Well, I think there is no comment I can make on that.

I would say, first, that I imagine that that business has been doing very well in the last few days—anyone selling ice creams has probably seen a pretty solid demand for their products. The hon. Member makes a really good point, though; there is a lot of support for exporting, and businesses do not always know where to find it. The business growth service, which will be part of the small business plan, is an attempt by Government to bring together a single portal of information—to digitise, with a single digital login ideally, all the interactions that businesses have with the UK state. I want to bring together our considerable export offer, along with the export academy and the expertise that we have in markets, to make things very clear, so that a Member of Parliament like her visiting a business can simply say, “This is where you need to go. This is all the resource available, and I can raise any other issues with the Secretary of State.”