Commonwealth Trade

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Rosindell]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I commend him for his commitment to the Commonwealth and his deep understanding of countries around the world with which we have a lot in common, such as Australia. However, I have to say to him that this is not only about population size; it is also about geography. It is about the opportunities that some of the smaller territories around the world present. Some of them can contribute in all kinds of ways. Yes, some of them have small populations, but surely they too should be welcomed as part of the family of nations and territories. We do not exclude a small territory because it has a small population; otherwise, what would we do with places such as Pitcairn, Sark and other places that have very small populations but are loyal to Britain and want to feel part of the extended Commonwealth family?

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Gentleman on obtaining the debate. Before he leaves the subject of the overseas territories, might he not address the Government and say that if we were serious about protecting their interests and ours, we would have done what the French have done for their overseas territories: first, got them access to the European Union and, secondly, given them representation in this place?

[Andrew Rosindell]

Once again, I admire the right hon. Gentleman’s stance on these issues. I have enormous sympathy with his remarks. The Minister will recall that only yesterday I raised with him the failure of the United Kingdom in this regard. It is the only post-colonial nation to deny its territories the right to vote in its own elections. The Government in London, our Parliament, can of course make laws affecting our territories. We can declare war on their behalf. We can sign treaties and decide foreign policy and currency issues—a whole range of things—yet no one from our territories has the right to vote in our elections or to have any direct say. We do not even have a Standing Committee of Parliament that deals exclusively with our territories and dependencies. In that regard, we are unlike Australia, which has an external territories committee. Therefore we have, I believe, let our territories down over many years.

It is only since the election of the current Government that I have seen a genuine change of attitude to our territories. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham), who championed this cause as Minister for the overseas territories until only recently. Many of the representatives from those territories are truly grateful to him for everything that he did to change the relationship and to ensure that we have a much more positive attitude towards our overseas territories.

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[Andrew Rosindell]

The hon. Gentleman speaks for the majority of the British people in that. Those outside this place cannot understand what on earth Governments have been doing over the past 30-odd years narrowly focusing on a small part of the world, which might be geographically close, but with which we have huge differences, when in other parts of the world, with which we have so much in common, we have neglected such opportunities. We need to unshackle ourselves from this deadweight and forge something new and positive that will sustain us with trade and co-operation in a range of areas in the years to come.

[Mr Frank Field]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Rosindell]

I will have to make some progress, but I give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Frank Field]

The hon. Gentleman talks about the change in attitude of the Government already to the overseas territories. As we know, changes in attitude can be important, if they are followed by action. What would he like to see that change in attitude deliver for the overseas territories by the end of this Parliament?

[Andrew Rosindell]

This is of course not purely a debate about overseas territories. It is about Commonwealth trade. Only last week, I met chief ministers and premiers from many of the overseas territories, who were here for the joint ministerial council, and the one message that I received from all of them was that although they appreciate all the different, new initiatives our Government are introducing and the much warmer relationship, they still wonder: are they British or are they foreign? That is the question they put to me. Why are British territories under the Foreign Office? They are British, not foreign. They are not even Commonwealth; they are not allowed to join the Commonwealth. They do not even have territory status in the Commonwealth. They feel that they are treated almost as an anomaly.

It is high time that we addressed all the issues and treated overseas territories as an equal part of the British family, while upholding their right to self-determination and home rule. We do not want to govern them from London, but we want them to feel securely part of the British family. Giving them elected representation and secure places in our Parliament, particularly for territories that are under threat from aggressive neighbours, such as the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, would signify that we intend to retain them permanently as British sovereign territory and that negotiations over their future will not take place. I appreciate the sentiments that the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) expressed this morning.

The nations of the Commonwealth are dotted along the whole spectrum of the development index. Within it are some of the largest producers of raw materials, as well as a broad range of manufacturing and service industries. Combined with that rich diversity, we are all wonderfully tied together by a shared history, heritage and language. Many Commonwealth countries continue to share Her Majesty the Queen as their sovereign and Head of State, and of course Her Majesty remains head of the Commonwealth itself. The Commonwealth was not an accident; it was built on trade flows, the location of commodities, the availability of work forces and a mutual desire to develop and succeed.

Where have things gone wrong? Why has the United Kingdom sat back? Why has there been such a systematic failure to develop the debate over Commonwealth trade? I suggest that some of the fault may lie in our membership of a continental construction that has effectively tied Britain to a protectionist trade block. Although I welcome everything that the Foreign Secretary has said, perhaps blame lies with the low importance that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has given in recent years to our relationship with the Commonwealth.

Could the Minister tell the House how many people in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office actually work on Commonwealth issues? I am informed that it may be as few as six, and only one may be full-time. Is that true and, if so, why do Her Majesty’s Government not make the Commonwealth a greater priority? In addition, can the Minister confirm which UK representative, if any, joined the Commonwealth Finance Ministers meeting delegation in Tokyo in October of this year? I have no doubt that he agrees that the UK should take a leading role at such meetings.

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[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I am grateful to be able to contribute to this debate, Mr Turner. Hon. Members will be pleased to hear that my speech will not be quite as long as that of the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), who was so generous in his handling of our interventions. I am immensely grateful to him for the way in which he has tackled this debate and for his genuine wish to engage with other Members in the Chamber. Such engagement does not always happen in debates, even though we call this a debating Chamber.

I wish to touch on three themes. The first is how important and perilous our exporting position is; any debate on trade, Commonwealth or otherwise, is of crucial importance to the House and our constituents. My second theme is to follow what the hon. Gentleman has already said about the need for us to build on our advantages with the Commonwealth, which we still have despite our neglect. Lastly, I will make a few suggestions about what the Minister can do to begin to change the position.

As you have said in the past, Mr Turner, it is always a good starting point in debates such as this to take the theme of the two nations: Britain and Germany. We need to look at what is happening to Germany and what is not happening to us. I have been here long enough to know that the balance of trade used to be a key factor in general elections; Governments won and lost elections over it. It now seems impossible to lose an election because of negative growth in the balance of trade. One day a reckoning must come on that score; how it will come I will leave for others to develop.

If we look at Germany’s performance over the current decade, we see that whereas its share of exports has risen from 8.9% to 9.3% of the total, our share has fallen from 5.3% to 4.1%. We as an economy are more dependent on exports than Germany—almost more dependent than any other country in the world, which relates to the contribution of the hon. Member for Romford about where we might look to for new emerging and important markets.

Unlike us, Germany has not been content to dig ever deeper into the European Union for its trading partners. Its trade with Europe, over the same period, has fallen to 38% of its total trade whereas ours is at 44.5%. We see the great economy of Europe disengaging from its European base and looking elsewhere for its markets just as we are getting more clearly and firmly entrenched in that market.

I share many of the doubts that the hon. Member for Romford expressed about whether it is sensible—by history, by inclination, by language and by culture—to try to develop in areas where there are barriers to us, in contrast with much, if not most, of the Commonwealth.

What should we be doing on trade, particularly on trade with the Commonwealth? That is my second theme. Clearly, we need to reorientate ourselves as an economy and a country to those areas where markets are growing and we should not remain content with dealing with areas where markets are shrinking. The truth is that we have been very poor on that score. A number of reports suggest that. For example, a CBI report recently suggested that if we can only reorientate ourselves to those growth markets, by the end of the next decade our trade will be £20 billion larger in real terms than it is today.

How do we achieve that reorientation? We can have debates until kingdom come, but I doubt whether they would make much difference in the outside world. However, we have been given this huge advantage by the hon. Gentleman today—not only did he locate our interests in the Commonwealth but he suggested some practical moves that we can make. I am sure that the Minister will not disappoint his hon. Friend; I am equally sure that he will not answer those points but he will join him in supporting many of the suggestions.

Before we look at the advantages of increasing Commonwealth trade, can we not look at the ease with which trade could grow with Commonwealth countries? We have the advantages of a common language, a common legal system and a common accounting system. All those are very significant advantages indeed; some experts estimate that capitalising on them—I call them natural advantages—reduces our costs in trade by 20%.

What might we do to strengthen Commonwealth trade? The hon. Gentleman has already said that we should make the Commonwealth Business Council more effective. That is putting it mildly, is it not? Sadly, most of us would not know that the CBC existed. If we are going to have some body that will drive this process, it needs at least to have a presence in this country as well as in other countries.

My second suggestion is that the Government ought to make much more use of Lord Howell; why he was dropped—shoved aside—in the reshuffle, goodness only knows. He was a jewel in the crown as far as Commonwealth interest went, and he did well during his stewardship at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; I emphasise the ‘C’ in ‘FCO’. I thought that the hon. Member for Romford was probably exaggerating when he said that there were six members of the FCO who actually had an interest in Commonwealth affairs and responsibilities, even if we include the part-timers in that total.

Lord Howell has made two important suggestions, and I put them to the Chamber today. First of all, we ought to be thinking about how we attract inward investment from the Commonwealth into this country. Some of the most important businessmen in this country are from India. They have brought huge investment and—to some of our constituents—very considerable prosperity. Why are we not developing on that success? The second suggestion of Lord Howell was that we use Commonwealth countries as a launching pad into neighbouring countries, which might provide us with easier access to those markets. Those two ideas are easy to implement.

Finally, I come to the issue that I thought the hon. Member for Romford only touched on: the budget of the Department for International Development. If we are truthful, we know that, for reasons known only to the Prime Minister, while we are cutting the budgets of other Departments and the living standards of our constituents, we are going hell for leather to increase our overseas aid through DFID. We also know that large amounts of that money end up in the wrong pockets. We are dealing with a very corrupt system.

I think we should go further than has already been suggested in this debate and persuade DFID that one of the most beneficial things it could do, to strengthen ties with the Commonwealth, including, in the longer term, trade ties, would be to get very serious about bringing Commonwealth students to this country. I am not saying that DFID should roll over and let vice-chancellors tickle its tummy; I think that vice-chancellors should go in and be very serious in negotiating what the terms should be. However, one very useful thing the Government could do, which would win them widespread support in the country as far as overseas aid was concerned, would be to say that from now on a growing share of that growing DFID budget should be given over to Commonwealth scholarships. One way of doing that, of course, would be to build on the beginnings of what Sir John Major is hoping to do with the Queen’s jubilee series of scholarships.

I hope that, by the end of this Parliament, we will have trebled—we could easily do it—the number of scholarships that we award to Commonwealth students to come here, to learn, to return to their countries, to be ambassadors for this country and to prepare for trade with this country. It would lead to more of our constituents being in employment, and to more of them seeing some sense in our having an overseas aid budget.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Romford on securing this debate. Nobody could accuse him of scaremongering. I thought that he was modest beyond belief in the gentle way that he approached the issue of how vulnerable this country—supposedly a great exporting country—is and how casual we are in our links and in developing our interests with countries with which we merely say we have a common language and culture.

Those Commonwealth countries fought with us in two wars. We are in the extraordinary position of thinking that we should be trading with those who were at our throats for those two wars—indeed, that they should have special access to our ports and airports. Meanwhile, those who fought with us in those wars are categorised as “foreign” and have to join the lot of people in that category when trying to come back to their mother country.

The Government could do much that would not cost a penny over the existing budgets. I look forward to hearing what the Minister says in trying to take this debate forward.