Industry (Government Support)

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his new post. My intervention, along with that of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello), is made in the spirit of trying to find a constructive way forward. In his speech, will the Secretary of State take account of the existence of heartland areas that have been over-reliant on manufacturing? One such area is Stoke-on-Trent, where we have large inequalities and where we need to do all that we can for manufacturing. Someone in his Department needs to be answerable purely for the ceramics area. We are desperate to meet with him to ensure that we can go forward with the regional development funding, irrespective of who administers it, in partnership with the Government in order to get what Stoke-on-Trent needs.