Jon Trickett MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, responding to reports in the Financial Times about comments made by Liu Xiaoming, China’s ambassador to the UK, said:

“The further we get from the EU referendum the clearer it becomes that the Conservative Government failed to engage in any meaningful contingency planning for Brexit.

“During the referendum, one of the few firm proposals coming from the Brexit camp was that Britain’s economic prosperity outside of Europe could be secured by furthering our relations with China and other large, fast-growing economies in the East.

“Today we see that the Prime Minister has put that – and £40 billion of inward investment – in jeopardy by bungling negotiations over Hinkley Point.

“I am deeply concerned whether the Prime Minister has the diplomatic skills that are needed to renegotiate Britain’s trade relations with the rest of the world. This is the person, after all, that chose to appoint a Foreign Secretary with the sensitivity of a clown.

“But any loss of Chinese investment matters all the more because of this Government’s continued failure to develop a modern industrial strategy and provide the infrastructure and other investment needed to deliver it. Only Labour are prepared to take the decisive action, including a £500 billion investment programme backed up a National Investment Bank, that is needed to stop our economy collapsing in the wake of Brexit. ”