Business of the House

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I will of course talk to my hon. Friends in the Department for Work and Pensions; it seems that I shall need to do that quite a lot today. The hon. Gentleman is describing the transfer of those funds into the hands of local authorities. Those local authorities will have the ability to look at a range of benefits and assess how they will work in the context of the link to people’s own housing responsibilities, and I know that that is proving to be a positive way of enabling people to manage to a budget more effectively. In so many of these circumstances, however, the ability to have discretion at the margin to deal with difficult cases is something that every council will have to look at carefully.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

In recent days, two companies in Montgomeryshire—Control Techniques and Invertek Drives—have announced 90 new local high-tech jobs. Will my right hon. Friend ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to make a statement on how we can work with the Welsh Government to build on this success as the UK moves out of recession?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is a great cheerleader for mid-Wales, and he is absolutely right to suggest that there are some great businesses helping the UK to compete in the global race by investing and expanding their operations. I will draw his comments to the attention of the Secretary of State, but if he is in his place next Thursday when the Secretary of State is responding to questions, he might have a further opportunity to raise the matter then.