My hon. Friend will be delighted that Teesside will benefit from one of eight new freeports, unlocking billions of pounds of private sector investment, and it will also help British businesses not just in his constituency but across the whole of the UK, including the 300,000 export-linked jobs in the north-east.
I thank the Secretary of State for her answer and for her support for Teesside exporters. From raw chemicals to plastics and steel, Teesside manufacturers rely on global trade, so I am grateful to her Department for the work it has done, alongside Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen, to bring more jobs, including in her Department, to the Tees valley. Can she outline when we might start to see these DIT jobs coming to Teesside, and what is her message to the people of the Tees valley ahead of the important elections next month?
My message is that Ben Houchen is doing a fantastic job, as is my hon. Friend. I am delighted that we are establishing a new trade hub in Darlington, which is only half an hour’s drive from my hon. Friend’s constituency. There are over 4,000 jobs in export-related industries in Redcar, including in the chemicals industry, and we will be doing even more to support them with the new Darlington trade hub.