Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Everitt Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)]

Later this year, the hon. Gentleman will see an effective code that will penalise the most egregious cases of fire and rehire and hit those companies in the pocket. That is an effective way of banning those egregious situations without disallowing the flexibility that some employers need in times of trouble.

[Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

T6. Mr Speaker, you will know as well as I do that Milton Keynes has a rich history of science and innovation that goes well beyond me banging on about robots in this place. I was pleased to see the historic settlement for the UK Research and Innovation fund last month. Does my hon. Friend agree that places such as Milton Keynes with such a history of innovation should get a fair share of that funding?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (George Freeman)]

Milton Keynes has been slowly becoming a globally recognised innovation hub on the Oxford-Cambridge arc, particularly on autonomous vehicles and with the connected places catapult. May I take this opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend and Milton Keynes on achieving city status as part of the jubilee celebrations? I assure him that our funding allocation mechanism is designed to support emerging clusters such as Milton Keynes.