Jonathan Reynolds

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for asking what I think will be my last question of the year. I would particularly like to recognise what he said about his colleague, the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson). Obviously, he has a constituency interest and a leading role in Northern Ireland, and I think he understood the decisions we had to make. We had to explain in confidence to all colleagues affected why the initial decision on the guarantee alone was not the right way forward, but that we were committed to the kind of solution we have announced today. I am extremely grateful for being able to work with the right hon. Gentleman on that. It is great news that he is going to the yard today; my colleagues the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Minister for Industry are also in Belfast today, and I understand that the Secretary of State for Scotland will be at one of the yards in Scotland too. On the hon. Gentleman’s point about innovation and research and development, that is the basis on which we have to compete. Whether in the sectors of aerospace, automotive or shipbuilding, what we need is high-end, sophisticated R&D, innovation and world-leading products. That is what we have in many of our advanced manufacturing sectors, but it is such a competitive world that we have to maintain that edge. In particular, R&D is an area where core support and core funding between Government and industry has real benefits. We have seen that in lots of sectors—maybe not to the degree we have needed in shipbuilding, but let us look at that for the future and approach the next year with some real positivity.