Bilateral Trade: United Kingdom and Africa

Lord Mendelsohn Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests in the register. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, on introducing this debate, which has been an extremely interesting one with some quite impressive contributions. The noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, has frequently raised the question of Africa in this House, and vividly illustrated in his comments not just his expertise but the huge business opportunities there. We owe him a great debt for raising this topic today. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Oates, on a quite outstanding maiden speech. Through colleagues in the House, I am aware that he did considerable work in South Africa some 15 years ago in helping to improve the processes and training for people’s contributions to the parliament there. Fifteen years later, we are going to be privileged with quite a few improvements and quite a few distinguished contributions. We wish him well in the House.

I will make some very simple points and raise a few questions for the Minister, who has started his task with great aplomb. First, it is always very clear that in a UK context, our priorities have not placed Africa very high up the pecking order. That is to be understood to some extent, given the short-term priorities, but it would be a mistake not to give it the right level of attention. It is also the case that our performance in Africa has declined. Our top export destinations are the US, Germany, France and the like, but five African countries feature in the list of the top 50 markets for the UK: South Africa is 22nd and Nigeria is 34th. So there is not an immediate priority, but the long-term interests are there and our relative performance is starting to decline. France has taken a very strong approach: it has a mission to double trade; it has held a summit with 50 African leaders; it has doubled its aid; it has looked at expanding its soft power through schools, businesses and education; and it is looking to enhance the 5,000 French businesses investing in Africa through access to finance and the establishment of a wide variety of bilateral trade and investment councils. It is a long-term play, and perhaps we should have more focus on those sorts of ideas.

It is certainly true as well that Africa is developing and coming on in leaps and bounds. The population is sure to rise: in the next 25 years, Africa’s working-age population will more than double to more than 1 billion, surpassing both China and India. Africa has also developed quite well in relation to regulation and performance, which is to be encouraged. That leaves us with the dilemma of how best to use these assets and our opportunity to make a difference at this stage.

I would like to ask the Minister about some ideas. We have heard about the trade envoys—I pay tribute to the great work of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, and wish her well on hopefully becoming Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, as well as to that of the noble Lord, Lord Risby, and the noble Lord, Lord Hollick, who I know has a role with Kenya and Tanzania, about which I have spoken with him in other places. But are we giving them the right level of support? What is the next phase of using trade envoys more effectively? UKTI has limited resources and a skills base that is based around civil servants. Given the limited resources, and the use that some countries make of their aid budgets, do we have the right skills inside UKTI to leverage them? Are there people inside DfID who have had more experience of how that is done who we should transfer?

Finally, I will make one simple point about entrepreneurs. Africa is going through an explosion of entrepreneurship: a number of people have come over to the West and will go back and establish businesses. Also, the gender parity is quite extraordinary. Are we using the best resources that we have with our industries here to be able to maximise that opportunity as well?