Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will hold formal meetings with ministers for each devolved administration as to the background, experience and skills expected of any person appointed by the devolved administrations to enable industrial issues pertaining to each of those countries to be articulated effectively in the proposed independent Industrial Strategy Council.

The Industrial Strategy Council will be independent. It will be responsible for putting the right evaluation and reporting structures in place and make recommendations to government on industrial strategy.

We will begin the process to establish the Council as soon as possible. We expect Council members will be invited on the basis of their expertise, experience and skills. We expect the Council’s membership to be multidisciplinary and include leading business men and women, investors, economists and academics with wide ranging knowledge of local, national and international perspectives. Our aim is for it to start work in spring 2018.