Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of investing in industrial sites in the West Midlands.

While the Department has made no assessment of the potential merits of investing in industrial sites in the West Midlands, we continue to consider industry’s feedback on the key enablers for strategic investment which includes the need for industrial sites.

We have been working at pace to develop an Industrial Strategy based on businesses responses to the Invest 2035 Green Paper and ongoing engagement with businesses, with the advice and oversight of the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council.

The Office for Investment is also expanding its capacity to better support and enable large scale investments, such as the recent investment secured in Bedford for a multi-billion pound Universal theme park.