Inward investment in Wales - new inquiry

Call for evidence During the late 1980s and much of the 1990s, Wales was successful in attracting inward investment, with the nation regularly gaining around 15% of the inward investment and associated jobs coming to the UK. However, in recent years, the environment for attracting investment has changed rapidly, and Wales has lost large portions of its foreign manufacturing employment and output. The Committee has agreed to undertake an inquiry into direct investment in Wales, which will examine:

• The current level of foreign investment in Wales and how this compares with regions of the UK, and the potential for increased investment in Wales in both traditional sectors such as manufacturing, and emerging sectors including IT and energy;
  
• The role played by the Welsh Assembly Government and the UK Government in attracting foreign investment and the effectiveness of co-operation between the government agencies;
  
• The support available to organisations involved in promoting Wales as a location for investors;
  
• The level of public sector investment in Wales taking into account the likely impact of the Comprehensive Spending Review in October, and efforts to relocate civil service jobs from Whitehall to Wales; and
  
• The conditions necessary to attract foreign investors to Wales including, but not limited to, issues such as transport infrastructure, skills levels and levels of taxation and other financial incentives.

The Committee asks for written submissions on these issues in accordance with the guidelines stated below. The deadline for written submissions is Friday 26 November 2010; earlier submissions would be received gratefully. Public oral evidence sessions are expected to start in December and continue in the New Year.

Please note

Each submission should:

• begin with a short summary in bullet point form;
• have numbered paragraphs; and
• be in Word format or a rich text format with as little use of colour or logos as possible. Please do not send your submission as a PDF document.

A copy of the submission should be sent by e-mail to welshcom@parliament.uk and marked “Inward investment in Wales”.

An additional paper copy should be sent to:

Welsh Affairs Committee
House of Commons
7 Millbank
London
SW1P 3JA.

It would be helpful, for Data Protection purposes, if individuals submitting written evidence send their contact details separately in a covering letter. You should be aware that there may be circumstances in which the House of Commons will be required to communicate information to third parties on request, in order to comply with its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Please supply a postal address so a copy of the Committee’s report can be sent to you upon publication.

A guide for written submissions to Select Committees may be found on the parliamentary website at http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/witnessguide.pdf

Please also note that:

• Material already published elsewhere should not form the basis of a submission, but may be referred to within a proposed memorandum, in which case a hard copy of the published work should be included.
  
• Memoranda submitted must be kept confidential until published by the Committee, unless publication by the person or organisation submitting it is specifically authorised.
  
• Once submitted, evidence is the property of the Committee. The Committee normally, though not always, chooses to make public the written evidence it receives, by publishing it on the internet (where it will be searchable), by printing it or by making it available through the Parliamentary Archives. If there is any information you believe to be sensitive you should highlight it and explain what harm you believe would result from its disclosure. The Committee will take this into account in deciding whether to publish or further disclose the evidence.
  
• Select Committees are unable to investigate individual cases.