UK Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order (International Relations Committee Report)
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Bilimoria (CB)
My Lords, when I came to this country in the early 1980s as a 19 year-old student from India, Britain was known as the sick man of Europe. It had no respect in the world. A country which had a great empire was going nowhere. In a recent article, James Landale wrote:
“William Gladstone, said that his first principle of foreign policy was ‘good government at home’ ... countries with a strong sense of national identity, a healthy economy and a stable political leadership with a clear agenda tend to have good foreign policies … I am not sure Britain quite lives up to that ideal”.
I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Howell, and his committee on this outstanding report, UK Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order. It is the sort of committee and the sort of report that makes the world look at the House of Lords and respect it. It says right up front that,
“a harsher and more inward-looking America, a shrinking political centre-ground in much of Europe, a more aggressive Russia … the collapse of some regimes in the Middle East … and China”,
wanting its time in the sun are a challenge. Then the report goes straight into global Britain. This is the whole challenge. Sir Simon Fraser, the former head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that,
“he could not ‘think of any time in my career when there has been less clarity, frankly, about the purposes and objectives of British foreign policy’”.
My noble friend Lord Ricketts, who spoke earlier, was,
“‘disappointed at the lack of an energetic, active, distinctive British foreign policy in the last couple of years’. He thought Brexit was ‘distracting enormously from that’. Dr Haass said that ‘among the foreign policy elites—or the foreign policy establishment … the British role is seen as having been downsized and likely to continue that way, and that Brexit reinforces that’”.
In a speech in October, the Foreign Secretary spoke about his vision of the invisible chain. He openly said that,
“while the UK ‘may not be a superpower’, it was ‘probably the best-connected of the major powers in the world’. Through ‘our links with the Commonwealth, the transatlantic alliance, our European friends, and’”,
one could go on, and then he talked about shared values.
Given our size and nuclear power relationship, there is a country that the report talks about, which is India. It is the largest country in the Commonwealth and a growing economic powerhouse, and we should take it far more seriously. We have just had the largest democratic event in the history of the world: there were 900 million voters in the Indian election. The results will be declared on 23 May. Are we taking India, an emerging global power regionally that has the whole world looking it, as seriously as we should? The report states:
“The FCO said the UK’s relationship with India was ‘central to our aspirations’”,
and Mr Roy-Chaudhury pointed out,
“other countries are assiduously seeking to engage with India and they appear to offer more than the UK … is able to commit to”.
As the founding chairman of the UK India Business Council, I have seen this first-hand in the way we have treated India. I accompanied Prime Minister Blair, Prime Minister Brown and Prime Minister Cameron—twice—to India and I was there when Prime Minister Theresa May was there in 2016. She asked India to take back Indians who had overstayed in Britain. That is no way to build a relationship. She did not even meet the universities delegation when we were there. Britain increased the minimum salary for IT workers from India, a great services export, by 50% the week before she left. Just before that, Britain reduced the cost of a two-year multiple entry visa for business and tourist visitors from China from £350 to £85, and in India to this day it is four times the price. The report says very clearly that international students must be removed from the net migration figures. Does the Minister agree? The number one reason why international students do not choose the UK as their number one choice is the lack of postgraduate work opportunities. We are beaten by Canada, Australia and America. We need to bring back the two-year postgraduate work visa.
This year is the centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar by Brigadier-General Dyer, for which Britain has never apologised. The Prime Minister had the opportunity, including on the anniversary itself, to apologise, and she did not. Why can the British Government not apologise for this monstrous act, as Churchill put it? It was nothing short of murder, as my mother put it, of innocent men, women and children, Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims alike.
The report talks about the Commonwealth. Sir Ciarán Devane, head of the British Council, said that the Commonwealth “gives us something extra”. India now has a major role to play in powering the Commonwealth ahead. I know the noble Lord, Lord Howell, is a great champion of the Commonwealth.
Many witnesses talked about Europe. The report is not focused on Europe, but it states:
“‘Britain’s first circle of interest and influence, even outside the EU, will be via Europe … continental Europe [is] our first line of defence and interest’”.
Sir Simon Fraser said that,
“our policy naturally aligns with that of other European countries”.
Then we come to defence. The report talks a lot about soft power but also about hard power. Soft power is useless without hard power. We have just celebrated the 70th anniversary of NATO, to which our country is the second highest contributor after America. However, our defence spending is 2% of GDP, whereas America spends 3.5%. I think we should spend over 3% of GDP on our defence, as that would make our position even stronger.
The report also talks about how badly the Foreign Office is resourced, with an expenditure of only £1.95 billion. The noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, said that the FCO’s budget was “far too low”, and Sir Simon Fraser described it as having been “hollowed out”. Regarding the influence that we have as a country, we are a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the G7, the G8, the Commonwealth, the G20, NATO and the EU. We have phenomenal influence and yet we have had setbacks, with, as the report points out,
“the loss of a British judge on the International Court of Justice for the first time in the Court’s history”.
The decision to leave the European Union will contribute to how we are perceived.
One soft power element is our universities. As a proud university chancellor, I have said that they are one of our strongest assets. The British Council has highlighted 55 world leaders who have studied at UK universities, and the Chevening scholarship scheme is absolutely phenomenal in boosting our soft power. Professor James Mayall, who, like me, is a fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, has co-authored a book entitled Values in Foreign Policy: Investigating Ideals and Interests. In it he says:
“For several generations, governments have claimed that their foreign policy is based on a value system, and that they behave ethically in their dealings with foreign countries”.
I think that we do behave ethically in our dealings with foreign countries.
The FCO has three strategic objectives: first, to protect our people; secondly, to project our global influence; and, thirdly, to promote our prosperity. Yet, what is Britain if we leave the European Union? The Brexiteers talk about “global Britain”. I believe that we will have a loss in influence. One of the key tests that was not sufficiently covered by the report is security. Will we be able to reach agreement with the EU’s security agents, such as Europol? Will we have access to the Schengen Information System database and will we be able to benefit from the Prüm arrangements? We used one database over 500 million times in one year. Will we be able to shape Europe’s foreign policy, as we have been able to do, and will any trust be left between us and Europe if we leave the European Union? We are already losing our important positions in the world. There is no question but that we will be greatly diminished.
I conclude by congratulating the noble Lord once again on his outstanding report. This little country, with 1% of the world’s population, powers ahead. In spite of these three wretched years following the referendum, we are doing very well. Just imagine: if we can remain in the European Union, we will be able to greatly enhance our foreign policy in a shifting world order.
Brexit: UK Nationals
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Bilimoria (CB)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that there are 130,000 students from the European Union in the UK? If we leave the European Union, students from EU countries will be treated like any other foreign students. Does the Minister think that there will still be 130,000 European Union students here and what will the effect be on our universities?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I pay tribute to the noble Lord and indeed many Members of your Lordships’ House who have an important role in our universities. They are well placed to recognise the important role that our universities play, not just across Europe but globally. Because of the standard and the access that we provide, I remain confident that, through the withdrawal agreement and the new negotiation that we will have on our future relationship with the European Union, we will continue to attract both the best and brightest not just from Europe but from across the world.
Trade and Investment
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Bilimoria (CB)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Maude, on his excellent maiden speech. It was a very balanced and frank speech and we look forward to much more of the same. I was privileged to interact with him in his role as Paymaster-General when I was a commissioner for six years at the Royal Hospital Chelsea—the Chelsea Pensioners—where he used to come regularly. Other interactions included going round the Rolls-Royce factory in Goodwood, where he showed a huge interest in British manufacturing.
When I came to this country from India in the 1980s, entrepreneurship was struggling to shake off a very negative image. The word used to conjure up images of dodgy second-hand car salesmen and people wanting to cut and run. There certainly were people wanting to break through the glass ceiling then but they were held back by attitudes including excessive regulation. Our business climate did not help. We made cars that no one wanted to drive, we mined coal that no one wanted to burn and we owned businesses that no international company wanted anything to do with. In this environment, when I decided to set up Cobra Beer, my father, who was commander-in-chief of the central army in India from the Gurkha regiment—last week I was privileged to lead a debate on the 200th anniversary of the Gurkhas—and had 350,000 troops under his command, said, “What are you doing with all this education? You’re becoming an import/export wallah”.
His words would have been echoed by the parents of many other prospective entrepreneurs—but just look at how present-day Britain is and how the world has changed. Entrepreneurship is cool and we have a society where anyone can get anywhere, regardless of race, religion or background. More importantly, we have a society in which we can encourage people to come to the United Kingdom to make their way in the world, and in which we enjoy a huge level of entrepreneurial talent. In fact, London leads New York and Hong Kong in terms of highly skilled, knowledge-based jobs—there are 1.5 million of them—and a recent report showed that London is one of the top two cities in Europe for entrepreneurship.
The Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Popat, mentioned infrastructure. We have some great infrastructure projects. Crossrail is being built beneath our feet. It is a £15 billion project and the estimated economic benefit is almost £50 billion. We will see huge effects, with thousands of jobs and world-class infrastructure.
Our universities have not been spoken about enough in this debate. In the QS university rankings, London had more top-rated universities than any other city in the world. The success is not confined to London. I am proud to have been installed recently as the seventh chancellor of the University of Birmingham. We, too, were in the top 100. Along with America, we have the finest universities in the world—and, talking about Americans, in 1758 American statesman Benjamin Franklin wrote:
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest”.
That is a statement that I hope more countries will emulate.
Of course, education is an export that this country should be proud of. We have amazing strengths. The Minister spoke of inward investment. We are number two in the world in inward investment after the United States—a country that is more than six times bigger than we are. For such a tiny island, we really do, as noble Lords have said before, punch above our weight. We have 1% of the world’s population.
Since coming to England as a 19 year-old in the early 1980s, I have seen Britain transformed from the sick man of Europe to a country that is now the number five economy in the world. We enjoy one of the most open and free business climates in the world and we are a country where entrepreneurship is admired and celebrated. In spite of our tininess, we are right at the top table: a member of the G8, the G20 and NATO, and with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Our tourism industry alone brings in nearly £100 billion and we have the most respected royal family in the world.
We have world-class capabilities in every field, including advanced engineering, aerospace, automobiles, beer, architecture, design, fashion, literature, music, film, sciences, universities, museums, theatre, opera, ballet, law, accountancy, advertising—and sport. Britain came third in the Olympics and the Paralympics, with 1% of the world’s population.
This is brilliant. This is absolutely amazing. In our automobile industry, Tata Motors, run by a fellow Zoroastrian Parsee, took over Jaguar Land Rover in 2008. I spent a whole day there in 2008, soon after the takeover. I believe that I am due another visit, because my visit is completely outdated. Jaguar Land Rover is now making more profits than the Tata group paid for the company that it took over in 2008—a company that nobody wanted to buy. The automotive industry is a great British success story. Last year, Bentley announced that it was moving the manufacture of its 12-cylinder engines from the Volkswagen plant in Germany to Crewe in the UK.
It is often said that Mrs Thatcher destroyed manufacturing in the United Kingdom. The reality is that we produced more in 1990 when she left office than in 1979. The car manufacturing industry is, if anything, riding higher than ever. These are companies with British workers and British premises and British sales exported throughout the world. With a little help from India, we have the best-quality cars in the world—I am proud to drive one—being manufactured here in Britain. What a contrast with the bad old days of Rover and Morris Minor.
I could go on. Automobiles are just one example. Hitachi recently announced that it planned to move its rail business headquarters from Japan to the UK. Companies from Japan, India, Germany—pinnacles of high-tech manufacturing—are moving to the UK. This is fantastic and brings more jobs over here.
Not enough has been said about partnering. Last year, we were told the amazing news about India’s “Mangalyaan”, which successfully entered Martian orbit for just over a tenth of the price of the latest NASA voyage to the red planet. Indeed, for less than the cost of the film “Gravity” the Indian space programme was able to do something that very few nations in the world have managed. Last year the Chancellor announced that £80 million would go towards funding joint space missions with India, and the UK Space Agency is doing so much to promote foreign investment in scientific research. If India can reach Mars, just imagine what we can do if we work together.
The pace of change of foreign investment in the UK is accelerating. The talent that we are attracting continues to grow. My joint venture partner Molson Coors owns the largest brewery in the world in Colorado, but it also owns the largest brewery in Britain, in Burton-on-Trent in the Midlands, where Cobra beer is brewed. The Prime Minister visited the brewery last year. It is an American-Canadian firm that is increasing inward investment over here. It plans to invest £75 million in its brewing operations in Burton-on-Trent over the next five years. Once again, high-tech manufacturing and chemical engineering are just the sorts of things we need.
UKTI’s Sirius programme, which I was proud to champion and launch, is a brilliant programme encouraging young entrepreneurs from across the globe to set up business in the UK via its 12-month support programme. It is amazing. UKTI calls it,
“the richest package of its kind in Europe”.
In its first 12 months, thousands of young graduates from around the world, from almost 100 countries, applied to join the Sirius programme to start up their businesses right here.
On the other hand, I have been very outspoken in my belief that the coalition Government’s immigration policy—which, unfortunately, the current Government seem to be continuing—was very damaging for business and sent out the wrong signals to our universities and academics and in terms of attracting investment and business. We should change our immigration rhetoric and, for a start, stop including international students in the immigration figures.
Inward investment in the UK is one of the genuine success stories to have emerged from the financial crisis. In every way, foreign investment is helping to transform Britain and the world for the better. On the other hand, the Minister, in his very frank speech, said that our exports are lagging. In the three months to April 2015, the UK’s deficit on trade in goods and services was estimated to be £7.2 billion, widening by £1.6 billion from the three months to January 2015. Our GDP growth is good, but our GDP per capita could and should be much higher. Our inflation is zero, which is brilliant, and our employment rate is fantastic—at 73.4% in December 2014 to February 2105, it was the highest rate since comparable records began in 1971. This is marvellous. At the close of trade on 8 May, the FTSE was 2.3% higher and the pound experienced the largest one-day rise against the dollar since the previous general election in 2010.
Noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Davies, have spoken about productivity. It is one of the most important factors in the success of a country. The more efficient an economy is, the more that can be produced in a sustainable fashion. High productivity growth leads to a higher growth rate in the economy. The reality is that in 2013, based on GDP per hour, the UK came sixth of the G7 countries and productivity was 16 percentage points lower than the G7 average, which is the widest productivity gap since 1991. Does the Minister agree that this is a huge challenge that we have to address?
We have heard about a balanced economy. Manufacturing industry used to be much bigger than it is today. Today it employs 2.6 million people and accounts for 10% of our GDP. Almost 70% of our R&D investment goes into the manufacturing sector and, as we have heard, goods produced in the sector account for 45% of all exports. As a percentage, however, we underinvest by miles in R&D and innovation compared with the OECD, EU and American average. Will the Minister acknowledge that?
When it comes to all the great coalition Government initiatives for manufacturing—the catapult centres, the advanced manufacturing supply initiatives and so on—the Government still have not set a specific target of increasing manufacturing as a percentage of GDP. The Indian Government on the other hand have said that they want manufacturing as a percentage of GDP to reach 25%. Will the Minister agree that we should set a target for manufacturing as a percentage of GDP? It has dropped from 30% to 10% of GDP since the early 1970s, and we must arrest this decline. Investment in manufacturing was £26.2 billion—23% of total investment in business—and that has fallen once again.
Before I conclude, I emphasise that the Government have the right intentions. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said:
“We want the words: ‘Made in Britain’, ‘Created in Britain’, ‘Designed in Britain’ and ‘Invented in Britain’ to drive our nation forward”.—[Official Report, Commons, 23/3/2011; col. 966.]
Well, let us now walk the talk.
Not much mention is made of UK Trade and Investment. I have been privileged as a founding chairman of the UK India Business Council to work with that body, and I think that it does a great job. Could the Minister reassure us about support for UKTI going forward? The high commission of India has been amazing. What are we going to do to encourage businesses to use its services more? In India, they have been fantastic. Now an Indian beer, Cobra, is being brewed in Burton-on-Trent, where IPA was brewed to send out to the troops in India. The Indian high commission helped us to launch Carling beer, a British joint-venture product of ours, in India. This is marvellous. The Minister said that the EU-India free trade agreement should be vitalised. Will the Minister tell us when that will be concluded? As for Europe, I was privileged to speak at the annual meeting of the Council of British Chambers of Commerce in Europe. What support has been given to these excellent initiatives around Europe and around the world, including the British Business Group in India?
The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, said that we should really be committing more to defence. I have asked the Government many times whether we will commit to spending 2% of GDP, the NATO target. Our hard power and soft power is what makes us strong.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, spoke about a Magna Carta. What an auspicious day on which to make a maiden speech, on 15 June 2015, 800 years after Magna Carta. Let us think of Britain’s influence, reputation and respect from that one document 800 years ago, and how it has influenced the whole world. This is what we underestimate.
I conclude by saying what a brilliant campaign is the GREAT campaign, again not mentioned so far in this debate. I urge the Government to get even more behind it. When I spoke at the Milan Expo, along with Dominic Jermey, the head of UKTI, I visited our British pavilion, the “beehive”, which was the most innovative, creative and different by miles. We stole the show, and we are going to do that until December. In Germany, which people talk about being the most powerful economy in Europe, who built the German Parliament, the Reichstag, but our own Lord Foster? In design, we are the best in the world. The UK is the epicentre of trading—we have been a trading centre for ever—and the epicentre of truth, justice, fairness and openness.
The Minister and I visited the Rolls-Royce factory, where you see this acronym everywhere: PRIDE. We should have pride in our abilities as the best trading nation and inward investment nation in the world.
EU: Free Movement of Labour
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, the latter point referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, is of course not part of government negotiations. It is something that may be proposed in the future in a manifesto. On her first point, on television this morning the Home Secretary made clear our commitment to ensure that the numbers are reduced.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
If we are all very brief, we should be able to get in a question from the Cross Benches and a question from the Liberal Democrats.
Lord Bilimoria
My Lords, everyone would agree that we should clamp down on illegal immigration and those who come to take advantage of this country. However, is the Minister aware of a recent poll ranking the contributions of immigrant communities? One of the countries that came highest for a positive contribution was the Polish community, with 44%. On the other hand, the Bulgarians were on just 18%, although the Bulgarian ambassador pointed out that only 1,000 Bulgarians were on benefits. Why, then, do we not appreciate the contribution of immigrants from the European Community as well?
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, we do indeed appreciate the contribution of those who come from the EU to work here. The problem relates to those who come and decide that they will not work. That is why we made changes to the benefits system; that is why Germany is in the process of doing much the same.
EU: UK Isolation
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Bilimoria
My Lords, today a statement was signed by business leaders, and I was one of the signatories for Business for Britain. The statement was very simple:
“As business leaders and entrepreneurs responsible for millions of British jobs, we believe that the Government is right to seek a new deal for the EU and for the UK’s role in Europe. Far from being a threat to our economic interests, a flexible, competitive Europe, with more powers devolved from Brussels, is essential for growth, jobs and access to markets. We therefore welcome the launch of Business for Britain’s campaign for real change in the EU and urge all political parties to join in committing themselves to a national drive to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership of the EU”.
After signing that, I was accosted by many people today saying, “This means you are anti-Europe”. I am not anti-Europe in any way whatever—in fact, quite the contrary. A week ago, before this statement, the British Chambers of Commerce released its survey on Europe. The BCC’s European Union business barometer of more than 4,000 businesses shows support for renegotiation with Europe. A week before this statement came out, John Longworth, the director-general said:
“Companies believe that re-negotiation, rather than further integration or outright withdrawal, is most likely to deliver business and economic benefit to the UK”.
This is the first major survey of British business following the Prime Minister’s policy speech on Europe in January, and it has revealed broad support by business for renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the European Union. In fact, the results were staggering, such as:
“Remain in the European Union, but with specific powers transferred back from Brussels to Westminster received the highest positive impact rating, with 64% … the lowest negative impact rating, with 11% … Full withdrawal from the European Union received the highest negative impact rating, with 60%”.
Businesses do not want to withdraw from Europe. Another result was:
“Remain in the European Union with no change to current relationship received the lowest positive impact rating, with 15%”.
This is business speaking. Do we want to listen to business or do we want to live in a Utopian world?
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for bringing forward this really important issue. The Prime Minister’s speech has raised an important matter. Whether to have a referendum is a debatable issue but the reality is that we are against the financial transaction tax. After everything that has happened with the financial crisis, the City of London is still the number one financial centre. On the idea of a “veto” last year with the Prime Minister walking away from the table, I do not necessarily agree that that was the right thing to do. People said that that means that we will not be at the top table of Europe any more. Well, when it came to the budget negotiations the Prime Minister was very much at the top table in encouraging the budget to be cut.
We have MEPs with no representation. Nobody in this country knows who their MEP is; MEPs do not even know their constituents. We have a Parliament that moves between Brussels and Strasbourg. We have billions of euros of waste. We have free trade agreements that are taking years. Will the Minister tell me when the European Union-India free trade agreement will be finalised? We also have the euro, which has been an utter failure.
There is no question that Europe is our biggest trading partner—more than 50%. There is no question that 2.3 million European Union citizens live here and that almost 1 million British citizens live in the European Union. We want the free movement of goods and people but global institutions need to evolve. The UN needs to evolve; the World Bank needs to evolve and the IMF needs to evolve. The EU has evolved, but the euro was a bridge too far. Thank God we did not join the euro but so many people pushed to do so.
Right now we make up less than 1% of the population of the world but we are still at the top table. We are still a permanent member of the Security Council, a member of the G7, the G8, the G20, and we are still at the top table of Europe. The solution is not to cherry pick but for us to sit down together in Europe and remember our priorities—free trade, free movement of people and, most importantly, the maintenance of peace. That peace is priceless and worth much more than the billions we contribute to the European Union every year.
EU: Prime Minister’s Speech
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Bilimoria
My Lords, the Prime Minister was spot on when he summarised in his excellent speech that the key priorities of the European Union are peace and prosperity. We have had nearly 70 years of peace and we have had free movement of people and Europe is our biggest trading partner. So we should never take any of this for granted and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for initiating this debate.
However, the European project has had, right from the beginning, this utopian idea of a fully integrated United States of Europe. The euro, which we thankfully did not join, was a step too far that has demonstrated that the dream of a federal Europe cannot be realised. One size cannot fit all, and the only way that Europe can function in the future on a long-term basis is if there is full fiscal union and full monetary integration. These things can only happen if there is a surrender of sovereignty by eurozone members, so it can then be a true federal state like the United States of America or India. Although there may be a lull at the moment, the eurozone crisis has not gone away. This could be the lull before the storm. If the euro disintegrates, let us talk about referendums then.
We have lost a sense of balance and perspective in Europe. The European political system is frankly useless. We have MEPs who are completely disconnected. Most people in this country—and, I suspect, many noble Lords in this House—cannot name their MEPs. Many would not even be able to name one. The MEPs themselves have no connection with the so-called regions that they represent. It is nothing like the connection that MPs have with their constituencies. There is a disconnect. The Prime Minister’s speech did not touch on this.
There is also this ludicrous wholesale movement of the European Parliament between Brussels and Strasbourg. This sort of inefficiency irks us in this country, let alone things like the ridiculous working time directive. We are an open country and anything that curbs our sense of independence and openness makes our citizens want to run a mile.
There are restrictions in being part of Europe—not just financial ones. Look at the red tape, the regulations and the delays. The EU-India free trade agreement still has not happened after five years. If we had been able to negotiate a free trade agreement directly with India, it would have happened a long time ago.
We have already opted out of lots in Europe. We are not part of Schengen or the euro. But do we want to be a Norway or a Switzerland? We want to be at the top table and still remain a gateway to Europe and an integral part of the European Union. We need to renegotiate, as the Prime Minister has said, and then, if we do it on sensible terms, as the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, said, people will want to stay in Europe. We do not have to have the binary way of thinking: in or out.
To conclude, the European Union is fundamentally about peace and prosperity. Let us not lose sight of that and let us never take it for granted.
Ugandan Asians
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Bilimoria
My Lords, over the over the centuries communities have had to flee persecution, drop everything they owned and the connections they had built up, and flee. Over 1,000 years ago my own community, the Zoroastrian Parsees, had to flee their homeland of ancient Persia and settle in India. Fast forward to today and I would say that the Parsee community, in terms of per capita achievement, was one of the most successful communities in the world, in spite of the way in which they had to leave their country.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Popat, for initiating this debate. Forty years ago, as we have heard, Ugandan Asians had to drop everything and flee due to the cruel actions of a brutal dictator, Idi Amin, and came to this country with nothing. Fast forward 40 years and look at what they have achieved. There is the Madhvani family, of whom the noble Lord spoke; Anuj Chande, my friend, who is a member of that family, is a senior partner in Grant Thornton. The noble Lord, Lord Popat, himself has been an enormous success himself, and then there is my friend Shailesh Vara in the other place, and the Jatania family. I could go on with the numerous examples of Ugandan Asian business people who have been successful in this country, all in the space of a few decades.
When I first imported Cobra beer to the UK, I knew that Indian restaurants were going to be my base, but the first case I sold was to my local corner shop, owned by east African Asians. Today I am a senior independent director of Booker, the largest wholesale company in Britain, and we supply over 70,000 independent retailers, many of whom are east African Asians. I have seen first-hand how hard these families work and how every member contributes to the success of their businesses. I know so many stories of children coming home from school to work in their parents’ shop, who then work late into the night on their homework. This embodies for me what it is like to be an Asian in Britain.
When I am asked about Asian values, I say that it is very simple—it is down to the importance of hard work, of family and of education. The noble Lord, Lord Popat, also spoke of these values. Nobody embodies these Asian values more or better than the Ugandan Asian community. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Popat, on securing this debate and highlighting the achievements of this wonderful community. However, the success of the Zoroastrian Parsees in India was possible only because the Indians, starting with the Gujaratis on the west cost of India, allowed the Parsees to come in and settle, practise their religion and keep their culture and customs—and not just exist but co-exist with the local Indian community. Similarly, the success of the Ugandan Asian community has been possible only because of the generosity of this great country that took them in and gave them the opportunity to flourish. The noble Lord, Lord Popat, has thanked this country; I always thank it for giving me and the Asians here that opportunity.
Let us put this in perspective. As the noble Lord, Lord Janner, said, in the 1970s this was a country full of prejudice, when the glass ceiling was not just still there but was double-glazed. Even when I came from India as a 19 year-old in the early 1980s, Britain was a very different country from what it is today. Today, we have improved in leaps and bounds as a nation that is not just an opportunity-for-all country but a multicultural country and a meritocracy, where people from any religious or racial background can reach the top in every field. It is a country where entrepreneurship was looked down upon three or four decades ago. Today, entrepreneurship as demonstrated by the Ugandan Asian community is celebrated in this country.
In fact, those corner shops started by this community are the cornerstone of our economy—the entrepreneurial success stories of these individuals, who went as complete strangers to every high street of this country, opened up their shops, won customers, made friends and, more often than not, put back into their local communities. To this day, in spite of the proliferation of the giant supermarkets, the Ugandan Asians who own the two corner shops near our house know the names of all of my children, as they know the names of the children of all their customers, and they work really hard.
This country has been built on good immigration, the kind that we have seen from the Ugandan Asians, but the way in which this Government are dealing with immigration, with their immigration cap, is crude and blunt—they are using a carpet-bombing technique. The Government’s policy is not just addressing bad immigration, it is also stifling the good immigration that, quite frankly, this country has been built on over the centuries. The immigration cap is affecting businesses, not only in the signals that it is sending out in general but in very practical terms. For example, as I mentioned earlier, the foundation of my business is the Indian restaurant industry, where I know from the Bangladesh Caterers Association—the leading industry body—how much the industry is suffering because it cannot bring in the skilled staff, and chefs in particular, that it desperately needs. I am all for “curry colleges” being set up in Britain in the way that the University of West London, where I was proud to be chancellor for five years, is doing. However, these initiatives take time to produce the skilled individuals that the industry so badly needs. In the mean time the restaurants, which are already suffering a huge recession, are, on top of that, being deprived of skilled staff by the Government’s ill-considered Immigration Rules—and we as consumers are suffering because we are a nation of “curryholics”.
I have spoken many times about how the Immigration Rules are affecting higher education. Britain has the best universities in the world, alongside those in America. Now the Government have removed the two-year postgraduation visa for students, which was such an attraction to foreign students, who brought some £8 billion of revenue into this country. Quite apart from that, foreign students enrich our universities; they enrich our home students, giving them wonderful experience of interacting with international students as well as building generational links across the world. I am the third generation of my family to have been educated in this country.
We have seen a dramatic fall in the number of applications from students around the world, particularly from India, because the Government are sending out signals that Britain does not want foreign students. I know that this is not the case but that is the perception that has been created. Some 30% of academics at Oxford and Cambridge, for example, are foreign. Even they are suffering in terms of getting the brightest and the best because of what I believe is a retrograde government policy.
I have spoken before about the UK Border Agency abruptly taking away the licence from London Metropolitan University to sponsor visas for foreign students and telling the existing students that they had 60 days to find another university. It claimed to have found irregularities but the vast majority of those 2,500 to 3,000 students were completely innocent of any wrong-doing. This is without regard to the finances of the university, which will be short of £30 million a year. Not only does this jeopardise the university but it sends a signal to foreign students around the world that if they come and study in Britain there is no certainty that they will be able to complete their studies at their institution. That is damaging and short-sighted. Again, I ask the Minister if she will request the Government to remove student figures from the immigration figures, just as the United States, Canada and Australia have done. Why do we have to include them?
In conclusion, we are a tiny country of 60 million people and we are rightly worried about excessive immigration. We need to clamp down on illegal immigration, but why are we doing it in a way that is harming our economy, our universities and our competitiveness—the very fabric of our nation? As the noble Lords, Lord Popat and Lord Janner, said, the Ugandan Asian community has shown the wonderful way that it has integrated. The Asian community makes up 4% of the population of this country and yet is contributing more than double that percentage to its economy. The Ugandan Asian community has shown clearly and brilliantly that good immigration always has been, and always will be, great for this country.
Religion in the United Kingdom
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Bilimoria
My Lords, yesterday I was proud to speak at the School of Oriental and African Studies to inaugurate an exhibition called “Sugar and Milk”. It was about 10 Zoroastrian Parsee families who settled in south-east England and the stories of what happened to them after they settled in this country. What came across strongly was their identity and their religion as part of integrating into British society. Before I left India to study in this country as a 19 year-old, my father told me, “Son, you’re going to live abroad, and I don’t know if you’re going to come back to India. Wherever in the world you live, integrate with the community that you are living in to the best of your ability but never, ever forget your roots”. In the exhibition I saw how proud those families were of their roots and of their religious identity.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Singh, for initiating this debate at this crucial time, in Interfaith Week. My friend, the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, has written and spoken a lot about identity and the fact that we as individuals have not just one identity but several. For many of us, part of that identity is our religion. In my case I am proud to be an Indian, I am proud to be British, I am proud to be an Asian Briton and I am proud to be a Zoroastrian Parsee.
Mahatma Gandhi is reported to have said that in numbers Parsees are beneath contempt, but in contribution, beyond compare. The basis of the Zoroastrian faith is three words: humata, hukhta and huvarshta—good thoughts, good words and good deeds. The good deeds that religions promote have been mentioned; the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said that nearly 20% of charities in this country are linked to religions and their advancement. The Prime Minister has spoken about the big society. Religious communities practise the big society and have been doing so for generations. It is not just about religious communities looking after their own, either; it is about putting back into the wider community, and I am proud to say that the Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary, does just that.
Yet, sadly, religion is declining in this country. Some surveys show that 50% of people in this country say that they have no religious affiliation, while one survey said that 65% of youngsters between 18 and 24 had none. I am proud to be a patron of the Faiths Forum for London, working alongside my friend Maurice Ostro, the founder patron, with the nine faiths of the Inter Faith Network to try to promote interfaith dialogue and harmony.
I was brought up in the Indian army, and my father was posted all around India. The Indian army is huge, over 1 million strong, and contains all religions. I was brought up from childhood to celebrate different religions and their festivities, whether Sikh, Muslim, Hindu or Christian. I went to several schools, Anglican and Jesuit. India is one of the most secular and pluralistic societies in the world.
We talk about tolerance of faiths and communities. I hate the word “tolerance”—we should be celebrating each other’s religions and faiths. The most important thing is that no relationship can exist without mutual trust and respect. If there is mutual trust and respect among our religions, we have such a great future ahead.
I think the Minister said that this Government do God and religion. Are they doing enough to encourage and promote religion and religious faith? Could they do more? What religions do more than anything else is promote integrity and values. Religions are not about rituals or doing things right, but about doing the right thing. We are so lucky to live in one of the most open countries in the world, and I am so proud of the fact that we have wonderful celebrations of religions in this country.
UK Trade and Investment
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Bilimoria
My Lords, when I accompanied Prime Minister Tony Blair on his visit to China and India in 2005, we christened the British Airways plane that we travelled in “Blair Force One”. In his excellent speech in India, Mr Blair said that he was wearing two hats: one as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the other due to Britain’s presidency of the European Union at that time.
I, too, am speaking in this debate wearing more than one hat. The first is as the founder and chairman of Cobra Beer, which I founded with my business partner, just the two of us. It grew from a micro-business to a small business to a medium business—the full spectrum of an SME. The second is now as the chairman of a larger business with a global joint venture with one of the world’s largest brewers, Molson Coors, headquartered here in the UK, and a joint venture with Molson Coors in India. I am also wearing the hat of the founding chairman of the UK India Business Council, where I have had the privilege of working closely with UK Trade and Investment, which has funded and supported the UK India Business Council. In fact, the UKIBC would not exist without UKTI’s support.
Ronald Reagan is famous for saying that the nine most terrifying words he had ever heard were, “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help”. I think that that is very unfair, as government can genuinely assist business, not only in creating the right environment for business to flourish but in the way that UKTI helps British businesses go global. Yet it saddens me that when I make speeches around the country and ask an audience of, say, 200 businesspeople, “How many of you do business with India?”, just a few hands go up.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, for initiating this debate. The reality is that only 20% of British companies export—that goes for SMEs as well. If that could be increased to 25%, that would add another £36 billion to the UK economy. SMEs are the engine of our economy. According to the Secretary of State for Business, more than half the monetary value of the UK’s exports comes from SMEs. SMEs employ more than 60% of the private sector workforce and there are 4.4 million SMEs in the UK. In the past 12 months, UK Trade and Investment has helped more than 25,000 businesses, of which more than 90% were SMEs.
It baffles me why businesses do not make more use of the help that UKTI can offer. From my own recent experience, in 2009 we signed our global joint venture for the whole world, excluding India, with Molson Coors. Three years ago, Molson Coors was not interested in India and said, “You keep India”. A year later, as the global joint venture was progressing well, they expressed an interest in looking at the Indian opportunity. When I accompanied the Molson Coors team to India, we met with Barry Lowen, the head of UK Trade and Investment in India, who was able personally to reassure my colleagues from Molson Coors of the Indian opportunity. This helped greatly and a year later, in 2011, we signed a joint venture for India, called Molson Coors Cobra India, and bought, upgraded and expanded the only brewer in the state of Bihar.
A year later, in June 2012, the global board of Molson Coors, its enterprise leadership team, for the first time in its more than 200-year history, held a board meeting outside the United States, Canada and the UK—in India. During that visit, UKTI and the British high commission organised a high-profile event in Delhi for the board to meet key individuals who provided a variety of feedback, which gave the board the confidence not only to continue to support the Indian joint venture but, all being well, to sanction further expansion in India in the years to come. The role played by UKTI and the British high commission was absolutely instrumental.
As the noble Lords, Lord Cope and Lord Cotter, said, what more can the Government do to get this message out to British business, particularly SMEs, to take advantage of this help that is available to all British businesses? UKTI is on the ground in 96 countries. It is present around the world and can do much for British business and SMEs: it can carry out market-entry research, OMIS reports, at very reasonable rates; it can make introductions; it can help to host events; it can provide networking opportunities, host and organise trade delegations—I could go on. Why do businesses not know about this and make more use of it?
The Government have rightly woken up to the fact that Britain does not have a balanced economy. We have let things slip. In 1978, manufacturing was 26% of GDP; today it is barely 12%. In 1970, services accounted for 54% of GVA and manufacturing 40%; by 2009 it was 78% and 17% respectively. We need to encourage manufacturing. What we have not lost is the ability to be the best of the best in manufacturing in the world. In terms of advanced engineering, just look at Rolls-Royce, whether cars or aero engines. Look at Jaguar Land Rover—at our whole automobile industry in fact. At Cobra I am very proud that, first and foremost, I am a manufacturer.
What are the Government doing to encourage innovation? The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, alluded to this. It is a shocking fact that the UK Government’s investment in R and D is well below that of other advanced economies. Sweden’s investment is 3.5% of GDP; in Finland and Japan it is 3.4%; in Germany 2.5%; in the US 2.7%. In the UK it is only 1.8%. Skills development is crucial. According to the World Economic Forum, the UK workforce is 18th in the world, far behind those of Japan, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, for example.
The good work that UKTI does cannot operate in a vacuum. Government has to create the environment to help the capacity and capability of British businesses to excel and to be able to export and compete around the world. It needs to create the environment with a competitive tax regime and low red tape and regulation, which will attract inward investment and so help SMEs. Our taxes are too high, although I am happy to see that a survey published today says that, where red tape is concerned, we are actually far better than many other countries. Thankfully we are not in the euro, but our exports are still too dependent on the euro. UKTI must continue to encourage British businesses to look more globally, particularly to countries such as India. We are a trading nation, we are outward-looking, we are an open country and we can only succeed and compete by encouraging our businesses to go global. Otherwise the world will leave us behind.
Maldives
Lord Bilimoria Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Howell of Guildford
My noble friend is very close to the situation and has followed it over the years. On the last part of his question, it is for the Commonwealth as a whole, not for an individual member, to decide about membership. That is a decision that the Commonwealth comes to when it judges it appropriate. That has not arisen so far in this case, but the rest of my noble friend’s analysis is exactly right. We must move to encourage democratic elections, and that is what is proposed in the India-brokered plan, which we welcome and support, for there to be early elections. So far a commission of inquiry has been established, a special envoy has been appointed, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group was there last month on a fact-finding mission and our own high commissioner was there last week. My noble friend is right that elections are what are needed to establish legitimacy.
Lord Bilimoria
My Lords, I was privileged to get to know President Nasheed very well and was impressed by that young, dynamic world leader. As a member of the Commonwealth, are the Government doing enough to ensure that there is a genuine independent international inquiry into what happened, which some say is tantamount to a coup? Do the Government agree with that and will they press for early elections? That has to be the best solution.
Lord Howell of Guildford
We do not recognise this as a coup, although obviously there has been a change. Mr Nasheed is known to many people and greatly admired. We still need to establish the full circumstances of what occurred and we hope that the commission of inquiry will do that. Yes, the pressure is on: the Commonwealth, through Don McKinnon and others, is pressing very hard that there should be early elections and that it should be established who the legitimate Government of the Maldives are. We can then proceed calmly to repair the damage and see that the situation is restored so that the Maldives, as my noble friend has said, remains the paradise and attractive tourist area that it has always been and continues to be, because at the moment we do not judge that there is any danger in the tourist areas.