John Denham will tomorrow criticise the government for overlooking Britain’s last remaining train factory – Bombardier in Derby - when awarding one of the country’s largest-ever train contracts.

The order for 1,200 Thameslink trains, likely to be worth over £3bn, instead went to Siemens on June 15. The German company will only create a few hundred UK jobs as a result.

The shadow business secretary will tell a Progress event that the decision not to award the Thameslink contract to Bombardier, which employs 3,000 in Derby, was “a huge blow to the UK rail industry”. Read more

Downing Street have announced £1bn of trade deals between China and the UK today. Although this figure is somewhat caveated:

Advancing opportunities for Government and business, delivering concrete outcomes to help boost UK growth through a package of and deals, likely to be worth more than £1 billion.

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