Industrial Strategy Consultation
John Glen Excerpts(7 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Greg Clark
I regard it as a badge of pride that this country is open to overseas investment, from which we have benefited hugely. When I was with my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) in the west midlands on Friday, we met the chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover, which is owned by an Indian company and has been a force for great good in the area. I want to be open to overseas investment.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
I warmly welcome the rigour of the analysis underlying the Green Paper. When the Secretary of State considers the future of the aerospace growth partnership, will he think about what happens across Government, particularly at Boscombe Down with the long-term relationship between the Ministry of Defence and QinetiQ, and look for opportunities to grow such areas of real expertise?
Greg Clark
The aerospace growth partnership has been a success, and we are committing not only to continuing that now very successful institution, but to learning lessons for how other sectors might create similar institutions themselves.
BHS
John Glen Excerpts(7 years, 6 months ago)
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Frank Field
That is a wonderful point to which I shall draw attention. I hope my hon. Friend and others will catch your eye, Mr Speaker, to develop that point.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman for how he conducted the inquiry on a cross-party basis. Given his depiction of Mr Green as a Napoleonic figure, does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern that although Mr Green came to the Committee in June and asserted that he would fix the problem, several months later that does not appear to have taken place? Mr Green is reported in the media as saying that he will do so in the next couple of days, but the situation is very irregular, given the authority that he seems to have.
Frank Field
Again, that is an incredibly relevant point, and it links to the previous one. We were certainly left with the impression that the problem would be sorted shortly. There is no concrete proposal on the table to bring justice to the pensioners, and a question of corporate governance is raised about how someone can take over a company with its pension fund in surplus and a good order book. An interesting aspect of Sir Philip’s evidence to us was that he said he could have annuitised all the pension liabilities when he took over BHS, but decided not to do so. Had he done so, we would not be in this position today.