Bobby Dean

I also welcome the Leader of the House back to his place. I believe this makes him the longest continuously serving member of the Labour Front Bench at 20 years, which is a remarkable achievement. I will not go into what I was doing 20 years ago—I am sure he has no interest in what I studied for my GCSEs. One of the stories that caught my eye over the summer was the sale of British success story easyJet to a US private equity-backed investor. The sale will create worry about jobs, fares and routes across Europe, as well as worry for the British economy, as we are now going to see profits move overseas. Acquisitions in and of themselves are not a bad thing—sometimes they are a sign of positivity for British business—but what is worrying is the trend. We are starting to see British businesses bought out by overseas investors again and again, and we are seeing people leave the London stock exchange at an alarming rate. This is starting to become a problem for the resilience of the UK economy. Tate & Lyle, the famous sugar manufacturer, was also sold to an overseas investor this summer, and three London-listed companies decided to leave the London stock exchange just this week. If the Government share my concern about this, they have many levers available to them to address the issue; they could look at stock market regulation, competition regulation and taxation. I believe that the time has come for us to have a proper debate in this House about this matter so that we can properly look into the details of those levers, see which are the correct ones to use and get a ministerial response on this matter. Will the Leader of the House organise for a debate about the future of UK businesses and the alarming trend of them being sold to overseas investors?