Speeches by Bryant.

“I am very happy to. I am going to Brussels on Monday, I am going to Paris on Tuesday, and I think on Wednesday I am going to the Netherlands, as well, to meet members of the new Government there.”

“I might have to write to you, because although I read it all last week, it is not at the top of my mind. When I met with SMMT on Wednesday or Thursday—whichever day it was—the key point it was making to me was about access to fleet sales.”

“The draft that was published was, I think, not the version that was anticipated in December, and the draft that was anticipated in December would have excluded us from everything. That is why, notwithstanding the very significant concerns we have about the automotive sector, I was pleased last week to see the version t…”

“Yes, that’s right. He was adamant that he was going to make sure that, before the Act was published, it was going to be more sensible. I am very hopeful that he and the German Government will be yet more helpful over the next version, when it comes to going through committee and so on.”

“Sorry, Chair. If I might, I think there is actually a role for the Select Committee in relation to this. If we want to win some arguments in the European Parliament, it may be that the Select Committee here might want to speak to them.”

“There are a whole series of issues relating to hauliers where we have some concerns; I will ask Amanda to respond more fully in a moment. I have hauliers in my patch who have raised similar concerns. We are discussing the issue with Commissioner Šefčovič and his colleagues in the Commission. Another area that I know ha…”

“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.”

“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…”

“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 …”

“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…”

“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.”

“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…”

“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 …”

“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…”

“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.”