Speeches by Jones.

“This is a challenging and difficult time for the workers and their families at Alexander Dennis, as well as for the local area. As Members would expect, I have engaged extensively with ADL’s senior executives alongside the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Department for Transport and the First Minister of Scotland …”

“The Department is making good progress developing our industrial strategy—a strategy that has been called for by industry for many years and opposed by the Conservatives for ideological reasons. We have launched our consultation, we have met industry and thousands of businesses across the land, and we are finalising ou…”

“We believe that everybody deserves a fair pension, and I totally agree with my hon. Friend. I want to set out where we have got to. As Members will be aware, this Labour Government committed in their manifesto to ending the injustice of the mineworkers’ pension scheme, and I was incredibly proud to deliver on that comm…”

“Of course my hon. Friend is right. I want to thank everybody who has campaigned and worked for so long on the mineworkers’ pension and everybody who has been in touch with me and with colleagues across the House on the BCSSS. One of the most humbling events I have been to in my political life was speaking to former min…”

“We are certainly moving as fast as we can. I will explain where the process has got to, and I hope that Members will be reassured. The transfer of £1.5 billion from the mineworkers’ pension boosted pensions by 32%, which was an average increase of £29 a week for each member. The hon. Member for Ashfield made the point …”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I join everybody else in congratulating the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) not just on securing the debate, but on the quality of the debate and the leadership he has shown as chair of the APPG for space. We have had an excellent debate and a lot …”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words, and I will do exactly that and set out what the challenges and the differences are. Having a process of work ongoing with the mineworkers’ scheme and working out how we will do surplus sharing, we are now working on the BCSSS and what we do in that space, even though it was no…”

“I completely appreciate my hon. Friend’s comments. I think everybody in this House shares them, and I feel that strongly and am committed to doing exactly that. We have recently received the analysis from the Government Actuary on the options for making a transfer to scheme members. Because we received that information…”

“That is certainly what we are working to do. Because the two schemes are slightly different, the way the Treasury has to interact and think about these things is slightly different, but we have done this Government Actuary process, and we met the trustees today. We will now put our recommendation to the Chief Secretary…”

“I will not give figures, but the scheme is doing well. That is in part because of the trustees and the actions they have taken, and the investments and process they have undertaken. While the 2015 situation caused there to be a change in the way it was managed, it is now running well, and people can be reassured about …”

“I certainly have oomph, yes, and I am working as fast as I can on this. I will not talk now about the wider support that we are offering people in our former coalfield communities, but a whole raft of Government interventions are there to support people.”

“The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. NASA and the European Space Agency are both really important in terms of ensuring that our companies get the contracts they need. We will work with our American counterparts on that. My focus with our American counterparts in recent weeks has been more on the UK’s steel industry, …”

“I will let anybody watching the debate draw their own conclusions on that front, but it is there for all to see. I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield for securing the debate and many hon. Friends for their representations. The Labour Government are absolutely committed to addressing the BCSSS. I look forward to updatin…”

“I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for securing this debate, and I welcome the opportunity to set out the Government’s position on the BCSSS. There are a lot of hon. Members in attendance. Many have long associations with the coalfield communities they represent, and I know that this is an incredibly i…”

“I am always very happy to meet my colleagues, particularly my hon. Friend. I am very happy to meet anybody in receipt of or campaigning on the BCSSS. My door is always open. He is right, of course, that our industrial strategy needs to do something that we have not had for so long: it needs to grow our economy across t…”

“I would not want to give the impression that this decision is waiting on the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to say yes. That is not the case. We have to go through the correct processes to get it over the line, because it was not in the manifesto; it is a different scheme and we must go through the proper processes. I…”

“Happy birthday, Mr Speaker. We have always been clear that we support the Acorn project. My colleagues and I have had many discussions with the industry, and we know what an important proposal it is. As we have said, the decision is a matter for the spending review, but we are close to having those decisions. I thank t…”

“We know how important carbon capture, usage and storage is—the Climate Change Committee said there is no route to net zero that does not include carbon capture—with, of course, up to 50,000 good, well-paid jobs across the UK. The Government have already shown their commitment to carbon capture with a £21.7 billion inve…”

“My hon. Friend is right to say that we lost thousands of jobs under the previous Government, whether in ceramics, chemicals or steel. The previous Government saw foundational industries through the rear-view mirror, but we know that these industries will forge our future. That is why we are rushing to get to clean ener…”

“Since the election, over £40 billion of investment has been announced in clean energy, creating good jobs with good wages, and by 2030, the industry could support hundreds of thousands of new jobs. We will soon publish our clean energy workforce strategy, which will set out in more detail where and how we will deliver …”