Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill

Rosie Wrighting Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

This is one of the problems with Brexit, isn’t it? It has provided a variety of different sets of rules for different parts of the United Kingdom, and that was always one of its inherent problems. Northern Ireland voted against Brexit, and we are now trying to make it work as best we can. The hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely right. Of course there are going to be problems under state aid rules for some businesses in Northern Ireland. That is why we are trying to do two things at the same time: to ensure that the Windsor framework is adhered to, but also ensure that we have a single UK internal market.

The Bill is short—it just manages to get on to a second page—but it does some important things. First, it increases the Industrial Development Act limit on financial assistance from £12 billion to £20 billion. Secondly, it raises the amount that the Secretary of State may increase the limit by from £1 billion to £1.5 billion. That is something he can do four times under the 1982 Act. Thirdly, the Bill amends the Export and Investment Guarantees Act 1991 to increase the commitment level from roughly £84 billion to £160 billion. Fourthly, the Bill allows the limit to be increased by increments of up to £15 billion by secondary legislation. Finally—this is perhaps the single most important and most useful thing to the ordinary punter out there—it changes the 1991 Act so that the limit is expressed in pounds sterling. In other words, it will be in common parlance, rather than referring to special drawing rights, which I think has confused an awful lot of people for a long time.

I will give just a few examples of why all of this matters. Some £14.5 billion of UK Export Finance support last year was used to support 70,000 jobs, adding £5.4 billion to GDP in the UK, including across several key industrial sectors such as clean energy, advanced manufacturing, life sciences and automotive.

[Rosie Wrighting (Kettering) (Lab)]

I am pleased to hear the Minister explaining what the Bill will do and how it will contribute to business, but in the creative industries and particularly in fashion, young designers struggle to access international markets and export finance. What are we going to do to support creative industries such as fashion so that we do not lose them in the UK?

[Chris Bryant]

That is an extremely good point. The creative industries are, of course, one of the eight key industrial sectors that we are keen to promote. The music export growth scheme is specifically intended to ensure that a wide variety of acts are able to tour around the world. We need to sort out with the European Union the issue of British acts being able to tour effectively and cost-effectively around Europe, but bands from Scotland, Wales and every part of England have been able to access that finance, and it is a key part of what we do.

As for fashion, I know that you try to do your bit, Madam Deputy Speaker—as, I am sure, do all Members who want to promote British fashion—but it is important to note that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport provides support for NewGen. A fair amount of London Fashion Week is supported by either the Department for Business and Trade or the DCMS, and many NewGen designers have gone on to achieve great success in the market. We also try to ensure that we have a presence in other fashion weeks, such as those in Paris and New York, and we provide other finance as well. There is a wide variety of measures, some of which are covered by the Bill, but I can assure my hon. Friend that the creative industries are very much part of what we are considering. I was struck by, in some—oh, I am not allowed to refer to those matters until tomorrow.