Speeches by Bryant.

“I wish I could give you an answer, but the truth is that both of those elements are still in negotiation.”

“As you know, my preference would be towards transparency, but this is one of those areas where it takes two to tango, so being able to publish it will require not only analysing some of the commercial sensitivities that there might be but persuading the US to agree with us. I am quite happy to write on that.”

“Go on, Kate—I am not telling you to publish it; I am just saying you should answer.”

“The existing safeguard that we inherited from our membership of the European Union, as you know, Mr Madders, runs out at the end of June. We have said several times in public, and I say again today, that we will have a set of steel trade measures after that. We have not quite dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s yet, but…”

“Some of that discussion is for DSIT, but I remember that, 18 months ago, a lot of life sciences companies were threatening to leave the United Kingdom, not talking about coming here. I think that this deal has reassured a great many of them.”

“I am not going to set a timeline for options being on my table because it is not only my or our Department’s responsibility; it goes across Government. I want to say one other thing, on another aspect that is my responsibility: the person who is probably rubbing their hands with glee the most at the moment is Vladimir …”

“No, I do not think R&D is lagging behind; I think we have done phenomenally well, but we have been living off a past legacy, and we have been living off the fact that the NHS is able to buy drugs at a significant discount because it is such a large single buyer. But, as Patrick Vallance has said, one of the great stren…”

“Thank you—you don’t sound it!”

“First of all, I do not think that people anticipated that we would get to 0%, because President Trump had said quite a lot of things about pharmaceuticals and the fact that Americans were paying more for drugs than we were in the UK. Secondly, I would point to the argument that Lord Patrick Vallance has been making for…”

“Obviously that is one of the things that we have been considering. Some of that relationship, in relation to specific energy prices, lies with DESNZ rather than ourselves, but we need to consider what the knock-on effects might be for other sectors. That is one of the things we are already focused on—I cannot remember …”

“It slightly depends who it comes to sometimes, but it would normally be Jason Stockwood—Lord Stockwood. All of us in the Department, whenever we come across such problems, want first to unlock whatever we can immediately—whether that involves speaking to other Departments, to local government or whatever—and secondly t…”

“Thank you. The second point I was going to make was around exports. You have heard me say before that I find it worrying that only one in 10 UK businesses exports. One of the strengths of what we did last year was that we focused on the eight key industrial sectors where we think there are real economic opportunities f…”

“Certainly. That is the whole purpose of the Office for Investment. There is no point in making an announcement and it not leading to anything.”

“Yes, very much so. It is slightly early days because some of these investments were signed up to only a few months ago. The £90 billion investment pledge from Blackstone, the £3.9 billion investment from Prologis, the £1.5 billion from Palantir, and so on, are all being tracked by the Office for Investment but it is a …”

“I said earlier that I had two things that I was focused on. The first was about services. I am not sure whether the figures you gave there are for goods or services.”

“They are all new investments. I am sure that if the investments were cancelled, everybody would be blaming the Government so it seems only fair that if the investments are brought forward, that is a sort of vote of confidence in Britain as a place in which to make long-term investments. As a Department we are very keen…”

“No, I do not think it would be fair to say that. I was not involved when that went through but I understand that, as I said earlier, because the British Government, working with the US Government, created an environment in which people felt confident to make those investments, they were able to proceed. Similarly, when…”

“Obviously there are two different ways in which economists look at balance of trade. Some, in the United States of America, for instance, would argue that having a negative balance of trade is a major long-term problem for the country. Some would also point to the fact that if we are able to access goods from elsewhere…”

“I think the Chancellor has been asked directly about it in the Chamber, so I would be inclined to go with whatever she said.”

“As Kate has just said, and so far as I am aware—I have not been in any of the rooms personally, so I am a bit hesitant about precisely what I can say—it has not been raised.”