Speeches by Jones.

“I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks; he is right to talk about the British Coal staff superannuation scheme. The initial focus of our work was on the mineworkers’ pension scheme, which was in our manifesto. We had to work at pace on that commitment, and we are working with the Government Actuary’s Department on how …”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his concern for his constituents who are in the BCSSS. I am very receptive to the calls from BCSSS trustees. I wrote to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury at the end of last year to begin discussions. We have received a positive response from him, and we are now taking the next steps to move…”

“My hon. Friend is right to point out that there are about 40,000 people in this scheme. About 5,000 of them are women, unlike the mineworkers’ pension scheme, of which the vast majority of members are men. The two schemes are different and operate in a different way, because in 2015 the BCSSS had run two deficits and w…”

“Nuclear power is at the heart of our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower. It is not just providing energy security, but driving billions of pounds in investment and creating thousands of highly skilled jobs. Great British Nuclear is on track to make final decisions on its small modular reactor competition…”

“The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and, indeed, the Minister for nuclear in the other place have visited the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and seen the good work that is happening there, and just shy of £20 million from Government grants has gone into that work to help dev…”

“I am hoping that it will take less than the 14 years in which the previous Government failed to deliver anything. We will see the announcements on the first SMR in the spring. Our door is open to anyone who wants to suggest building new nuclear in this country.”

“The right hon. Gentleman is right that the west midlands is a big exporter to many different countries, including the US and others. Of course, we will keep talking with the US, as the Secretary of State has been doing, and will ensure that we are standing up for British industry and doing the right thing.”

“It was a good night for Villa fans last night, so I congratulate anyone in the west midlands who supports the club, as my husband does. The west midlands, in many ways, leads the country on manufacturing, and it has one of the UK’s largest specialist workforces. Whether in automotive, aerospace or the rail supply chain…”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right; we do not want a race to the bottom. Advanced manufacturing jobs in the west midlands are well paid for a reason: there is a very highly skilled workforce and we want to protect and grow that. He is right that there is more that we can do. Some £2 billion was set aside in the Budget …”

“My hon. Friend asks a very good question. I am very pleased that the Department for Transport today launched the new UK bus manufacturing expert panel. We need to support our bus manufacturing, both for the transition to net zero and for building our businesses in the UK. I am very happy to work with him on that.”

“I saw many incredible businesses when I went to the Exeter business park last year. When I was in Saudi Arabia in January, I was with a range of businesses that were promoting investment, including many from the south-west. There is more that we can do, but there are some brilliant people there who are doing brilliant …”

“I thank the hon. Lady for her remarks. On upskilling and redeploying workers, as I said previously, we are introducing the passporting scheme and making sure that we can break down the barriers that exist in different industries, because the skills and talents of people working in oil and gas can be transferred to rene…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his work on the Select Committee, which is very important. As he knows, for a long time we have been a bit stuck in trying to set up a passport system because of the slightly different skills and qualifications in each industry and the need to bring them together. The Government became involv…”

“With permission, I would like to make a statement about this Government’s plans to unleash the North sea’s clean energy future. For almost half a century, the workers, businesses and communities of the North sea have powered our country and the world. We believe that they can and will continue to do so for the next hal…”

“The shadow Minister quoted trade union representatives, having not met them or supported them in government. That is always rich. [Interruption.] He says that he did; I stand corrected, although I suspect that he did not do it often. He quoted the general secretary of the GMB, so let me quote him back. The general secr…”

“My hon. Friend is standing up for the jobs and the young people in her community, and it is a shame that the national Conservative party Opposition do not seem clear on what their policy is. Where people can see the jobs and the benefits, councils such as her Conservative-led council support renewables, but for some re…”

“The hon. Gentleman raises a really important point. We know that energy bills have been rising because of the oil and gas we rely on and the impact of the war in Ukraine. We have massively increased the warm home discount so that 6 million households will get £150 to help towards their energy bills, but he is right to …”

“My hon. Friend will know about the announcements that were made recently about support for Grangemouth. In the last couple of weeks, I met INEOS to talk about its chemical factory and the huge contribution it brings in terms of jobs and the provision of chemicals. The £200 million investment from the National Wealth Fu…”

“I do not agree with that framing whatsoever. We have Putin who invaded Ukraine, leading to the massive global shock for energy prices, and we have a Secretary of State who is very pragmatically taking forward plans to, as the triangle tells us, protect and grow jobs, and give us energy security. I think most people in …”

“The National Wealth Fund and Great British Energy will be incredibly important in this space. Most countries have a sovereign wealth fund like the National Wealth Fund. We have set that up. Most countries have their state energy companies. We have loads of state energy companies—just other countries’. It is absolutely …”