Stephen Doughty

I will make a little more progress and then will happily give way. To return to the fundamental question that has been asked by many Members, as I said at the start, in the light of new information, the Prime Minister made the decision to withdraw Lord Mandelson as ambassador. The Prime Minister took decisive action on these issues, and now the Government’s focus is seizing the opportunities of our US partnership as we look forward to the next phase of government, moving from fixing the foundations to driving forward growth and national renewal. A lot of Members asked sensible questions about the relationship with the United States, our economy, our security and the state visit that is happening this week. I point the House to the fact that last week we secured and announced a £400 million contract with Google Cloud, boosting secure communications between the UK and US and building new intelligence capabilities for the UK armed forces. On Sunday, we announced more than £1.2 billion of private US investment in the UK’s world-leading financial services sector, and that new investment will create 1,800 new jobs across the UK and boost benefits for millions of customers. [Interruption.] Just yesterday, we announced a new UK-US partnership on civil nuclear power as part of our drive to put billions of pounds of private investment into clean energy, and I look forward to further announcements over the coming days.