Maritime 2050 Strategy
Debate between Baroness Sugg and Baroness Smith of Newnham(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Sugg
My noble friend is right to highlight that women are badly underrepresented in the maritime sector and across the transport sector. The Women in Maritime Taskforce, which is supported by the Maritime Minister, Nusrat Ghani, has been working to address the issue. More than 100 organisations have signed the Women in Maritime Charter, which commits maritime companies to building an employment culture that actively supports and celebrates gender diversity. We have also recently funded the 1851 Trust’s maritime roadshows, which will promote maritime careers to girls across the country.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, under the heading of “competitive advantage recommendations”, Maritime 2050: Navigating the Future recommends that the Government and industry should work together,
“to maintain and enhance the attractiveness of the UK’s regional maritime clusters and London as a global maritime professional services cluster”.
Can the Minister explain to the House how the Government propose to do that in the context of Brexit and whether the Secretary of State for Transport is really the best person to be navigating our future?
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, we are working closely with the maritime sector to ensure its continued success regardless of the outcome of the Brexit negotiations. Much of the maritime sector is governed internationally and the UK plays a prominent role in the International Maritime Organization, which is based just over the river from here. We will continue to play a key role regardless of the outcome of the negotiations.
Brexit: World Trade Organization
Debate between Baroness Sugg and Baroness Smith of Newnham
Baroness Sugg
An agreed deal with the European Union is a mutually beneficial choice and we are confident that we can achieve that. But as the Prime Minister said, while we think that that is by far and away the highest probability, we have a duty to plan for the alternative, and that is exactly what we are doing, in detail.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, the leave campaign suggested before the referendum that being on WTO terms would be easy and straightforward —or that is how I understood its case. Do Her Majesty’s Government have in place sufficient trade negotiators able to deal with both the European Union and the WTO? If not, what are they doing to rectify that?
Baroness Sugg
Absolutely: within the WTO we have committed additional resources to our UK mission to strengthen our ability to carry out work there and we are currently expanding within the Department for International Trade. We have gone up to nearly 3,500 members of staff and employed Crawford Falconer, who is an internationally recognised trade expert. We are fairly confident that we have enough capacity to make all these deals.