Regional Policy

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Trade and Industry – in the House of Commons at 1:47 pm on 22 January 1997.

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Photo of Geoff Hoon Geoff Hoon , Ashfield 1:47, 22 January 1997

The EU Commission's cohesion report highlights Britain's relatively poor national and regional economic performance over the longer term in comparison with other EU member states. Does the Minister agree with the report of the Commission on Public Policy and British Business that that is the result of a disproportionately high number of underperforming British companies—underinvestment—insufficient high quality training and education—unsteady government policy"? If the Minister, like the Deputy Prime Minister, cannot bring himself to agree with the conclusions of that independent report produced by some of Britain's most distinguished business leaders, does he agree with his Government's third competitiveness White Paper, which concludes that The same factors mean that Britain has a much larger proportion of poor company performance than France, Germany or Italy"?