Speeches by Aldridge.

“I want to pull something out about the co-ordination and diplomatic follow-through. In a previous session it has been raised that other countries have put a lot of heavy weight into the diplomatic relations. The Department for Business and Trade has seen cuts to its overseas staffing. I wonder whether you are seeing th…”

“So it is practical.”

“I appreciate that. You have touched on this slightly, but is there a cross-Government strategy for de-risking supply chains? I know you are having conversations with specific Departments, such as the MOD when it comes to UK defence capabilities and specifically Chinese export controls.”

“The one area where I would push slightly is around having a specific plan for de-risking those supply chains. Does the Department have that? Is there a co-ordinated plan on that? Is it something that is happening incidentally? It would be useful to know explicitly, if that is the case.”

“You mean here in the UK.”

“Sam, if I can come to you, the Government have launched a consultation on potential powers to protect the UK from adverse economic pressure. You talked about a mentality switch, and I thought that was really interesting. Where should the balance lie between the need for consultation and scrutiny, and the need for a qui…”

“The first thing you said was, “You can write the rules, but is there the will to follow through?” That resonated with me. Do we have the political will? Aline, can I come to you to build on some of those points?”

“How effective is the UK’s existing inbound investment screening regime? How might it be strengthened?”

“As ever, I agree with my hon. Friend. Specifically on the point about how we build our domestic capacity, there is something very exciting about the new £500 million investment in sovereign AI. It would be great to hear how that investment might—I hope—be linked closely to this work.”

“When I was on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, we visited Queen’s and talked about its cyber-security prowess. The ecosystem in the UK is very much connected—something we are very proud of—so I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am delighted to have secured this debate; in the spirit of interconnec…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered the UK-India Technology Security Initiative. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. As a member of the Business and Trade Committee, I recently visited India, alongside colleagues from across the House, as part of our inquiry into the UK’s trade with Indi…”

“Thank you very much for being here. We hear a lot about how energy prices are strangling business and causing real problems for households in places such as Weston-super-Mare and all our constituencies. It is important to remember that we are all constituency MPs. BP announced profits are up £1 billion, so clearly the …”

“I thank my hon. Friend, who accompanied me to India. It was a phenomenally insightful visit. The human connection is not incidental to this debate; it is the very foundation of it. I use this opportunity to give a special shout-out to people such as Akhilesh Madhav and his family, who chose Weston to work in our NHS, t…”

“What is driving that massive doubling of profits over the past six months?”

“I absolutely agree. One of the things I took back to my constituency was about how I engage with schoolchildren and college students, but that point is much wider; we should be really ambitious in that cross-cultural dialogue. There is nothing but gains to be had, so far as I can see. It came out loud and clear from ou…”

“Absolutely. Building on that point, many of us who made that visit think we need to address the problem that too much of British public life is working with an image of India that is frankly decades out of date. Many still think of India as a poor nation, a country that we assist, rather than as a strategic partner of …”

“So there is a potential for the increase in profits to be fed back into consumers? I am trying to translate that into something that our constituents might understand.”

“Absolutely. All the officials we worked with were fantastic. The UK-India tech security initiative is the right framework at the right moment. It covers the technologies that will define this country and it brings together Government, industry and academia. It has the backing of both Prime Ministers and cross-party sup…”

“I absolutely agree. One of the most exciting things about the UK-India partnership is the complementarity of our needs. To build on my hon. Friend’s point about that partnership on critical minerals, an example of our partnership is the UK-India critical minerals supply chain observatory—the first of its kind in the wo…”

“I thank the hon. Member for his question. We must take those considerations really seriously, and they are absolutely part of a wide-ranging conversation that we have with all our trading partners. We should be aiming for the best out of our relationships; we do not want a low bar. This issue is not simply about what t…”