§ 6. Mr. Michael BrownTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many new jobs have been created in the Brigg and Cleethorpes constituency since January 1992.
§ Mr. McLoughlinThe information is not available in the form my hon. Friend requested. However, I am sure he will welcome the news that two American firms, notably Kimberly-Clark and Paramount Packaging, have chosen to invest in his constituency, bringing 800 new jobs to the area.
§ Mr. BrownDoes my hon. Friend agree that the information he has just revealed suggests that the recovery in the United Kingdom is centred on my constituency? Is he aware that it is hoped that the Kimberly-Clark project will eventually employ more than 2,500 people once it is fully operational and that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade performed the topping-out ceremony at that factory just a few weeks ago? Is he further aware that a new power station was opened last week, which will employ 35 people, and that, in Cleethorpes, Allied Colloids announced that it will employ 90 people? Those jobs are in addition to those that my hon. Friend has just announced. Does he agree that the industrial recovery in the United Kingdom has begun in Brigg and Cleethorpes?
§ Mr. McLoughlinMy hon. Friend tempts me, but if I agreed with him wholeheartedly about Brigg and Cleethorpes I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess) would have something to say about that. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) has revealed that the changes we have made since 1979 to reform industrial relations have meant that a number of companies now find the United Kingdom the most attractive country in which to invest. Those changes have, of course, been opposed by the Labour party.