Inward Investment (Hansard, 18 February 1993)

§ 3. Mr. Simon Coombs
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the current level of inward investment in Northern Ireland.

§ The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Robert Atkins)
So far this financial year, the Industrial Development Board has secured seven new inward investment projects involving a total investment of just over £105 million and offering 1,299 new jobs. This is a most encouraging achievement.

§ Mr. Coombs
How many of the firms to which my hon. Friend referred in his answer would have come to Ulster if the clammy hand of the social chapter had been wrapped around the throat of the Province's economy?

§ Mr. Atkins
My hon. Friend, with his usual perspicacity, has put his finger right on the key to all this. My hon. Friend will recall what the President of the European Commission said recently when he referred to the United Kingdom as being a paradise for investment. Certainly this part of the United Kingdom is doing extremely well and would probably do a jolly sight less well if it had to be part of the social chapter, as my hon. Friend rightly says.

§ Mr. Beggs
May I, on behalf of my colleagues, congratulate those who have been associated with bringing successful new inward investment to Northern Ireland. However, my constituency has lost ICI, Courtaulds, Carreras, Klingers Yarn, Blue Circle, Circaprint and GEC. When can I expect some investment to be directed towards my constituency to make up for those job losses? Can the Minister assure me that sufficient assistance is available to existing industry in Northern Ireland to secure its jobs and its own manufacturing base?

§ Mr. Atkins
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point about his constituency, which I understand. It happened over a number of years. The Industrial Development Board, together with Ministers, has tried very hard to redress that by attracting new investment to Northern Ireland. We have been extremely successful, as the hon. Gentleman recognised in his opening remarks. He will understand, however, that if a company wishes to invest in Northern Ireland, the IDB can only offer a variety of choices to it. It is up to the company, in the final analysis, to make a decision about where to go. Of course we offer the hon. Gentleman's area, just as we offer every other area in the constituencies of Members on both sides of the House. In those circumstances, I do not believe that his premise holds up: that, somehow, we are letting his part of the world down. I shall continue, as he well knows, to fight as hard as I possibly can for new investment, both in his constituency and in every other constituency in the Province.

§ Mr. Budgen
Does my hon. Friend agree that the undoubted need for inward investment does not justify American interference in the affairs of the Province? If there is such interference, does he agree that it should be on a reciprocal basis and that we should be allowed to talk about the problems of the black areas of New York? Might I suggest that I might be given a small job in that discussion because I am ignorant, prejudiced and extremely keen to offer unasked for and impertinent advice in order that I may appear important to my constituents? It is obvious that I am supremely suited, as the Americans are, to the task.

§ Mr. Atkins
I shall certainly draw the attention of the Chief Whip to my hon. Friend's interest and hope that perhaps for the next three months he might be able to provide my hon. Friend with the opportunity to leave this country so that he does not have to participate in any votes on the Maastricht treaty.

§ Mr. McGrady
If I may return to the more serious business of unemployment in Northern Ireland, I congratulate the Minister and agree that any inward investment is most welcome. But surely he must be aware from his own departmental statistics and, indeed, his parliamentary answers, that certain areas of Northern Ireland never have industrial development. They coincide with high endemic unemployment. Does he agree that the matter must be redressed by the zoning of Northern Ireland for preferential treatment for those areas that have been deprived of investment in the past and have a current and endemic higher level of unemployment than many other areas?

§ Mr. Atkins
The hon. Gentleman fights his corner as hard as anyone I know in trying to attract inward investment. I know of his particular interest in Chicago and other areas of the United States. I reiterate the point that I made to the hon. Member for Antrim, East (Mr. Beggs) that I cannot force a company to invest in a particular area if it chooses not to do so. My job is to persuade them to invest in Northern Ireland. Of course, we try to encourage them in areas where we see that there is a factory, a site or a problem that would suit their operation. Given the concern that he expresses, as he knows, I have undertaken to make inquiries with the IDB about exactly what it is doing in his constituency. If I find that there are weaknesses, I shall seek to redress them.

§ Mr. Stott
While inward investment in Northern Ireland is to be welcomed, wherever it originates, it is having little effect on the employment prospects of a vast number of people in the Province. The Minister will be aware that the total number of people unemployed in Northern Ireland now stands at a staggering 108,000. Of that total, 29,152 are under the age of 25. Given such a chronic waste of talent and skill, what positive steps does the Minister intend to take to reduce the unacceptable levels of unemployment which are his direct responsibility?

§ Mr. Atkins
I cannot accept the direct finger of responsibility which the hon. Gentleman points at me. The problem has for many years existed and he is right to say that it is a difficult and intractable problem. Although the headline total of unemployment in Northern Ireland has increased, the adjusted figure is the same as last month's figure. The figures for the past four months are encouraging, while the total is disappointing. But that 465 makes even more important the task that I and my hon. Friends in the Administration, together with every Member of Parliament, have in encouraging existing companies to expand and provide new jobs and in attracting new companies, such as those that were the subject of the excellent announcements just before and just after Christmas of 1,400 job creation opportunities from inward investment. That provides the future for the young people about whom the hon. Gentleman and I are so concerned.