“If he will make an assessment with Cabinet colleagues of the potential economic impact of creating a regeneration fund to support the conversion of brownfield former industrial sites into mixed use properties.”
Asked by
Yasmin Qureshi
Answering Minister
the Chancellor of the Exchequer
Answer from Hansard
The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)
Last year, we pledged to the British public that if we were elected we would seek a new security pact with the European Union. Today we have made good on that promise. The UK-EU security and defence partnership is an ambitious agreement. It will strengthen NATO, and it will grow the economy. In a further demonstration that defence is a powerful engine for growth, I can confirm that Rheinmetall will be opening its new gun barrel factory in Telford, bringing 400 new jobs to the area and boosting investment in the UK economy by nearly half a billion pounds. This is what resetting Britain’s relationship with Europe and stepping up on European security looks like, and this is what delivering for defence looks like, to make Britain secure at home and strong abroad.