Government Departments: Communication with Industry and Commerce Debate

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Department: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Government Departments: Communication with Industry and Commerce

Lord Fox Excerpts
Monday 14th November 2022

(1 year, 5 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Callanan Portrait Lord Callanan (Con)
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I am happy to agree with the noble Lord. The CBI was one of the organisations that my right honourable friend the Business Secretary met only last week.

Lord Fox Portrait Lord Fox (LD)
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My Lords, in his Answer, the Minister used “consistent”. However, if you talk to businesses, that is not a word that they use. They use “inconsistent”. There has been a rotating door of Business Secretaries, a rotating door of Prime Ministers, and an ever-changing policy landscape. How does the Minister expect businesses to know where to invest and how to invest when there is no consistent policy from the Government?

Lord Callanan Portrait Lord Callanan (Con)
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The noble Lord is wrong. There is consistent policy from the Government. In a whole range of areas of policy, life continues as it did. There are of course unique challenges facing us at the moment—the headwinds of Covid, the energy crisis, et cetera—but this Government have the solutions and will carry on implementing them.