UK Trade

Lord Mitchell Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Popat]

I thank my noble friend for those compliments. I am sure there is something that can be done about the Bench. I welcome the noble Lord’s interesting question. We helped to let our pound fluctuate freely in the international market. Although sterling has appreciated by 7% since January 2012, it is still around 23% below the January 2007 peak. All I can say on the exchange rate and the value of sterling is: let the international market decide what the value of our currency should be, rather than it being something we directly influence.

[Lord Mitchell]

My Lords, on behalf of these Benches I welcome the noble Lord to the Dispatch Box. Even though our politics are different, he and I both come from a business background, and both of us are from north-west London. We also shared the same profession when we studied at night school—we were both waiters. He worked on Kilburn High Street, I worked in Greenwich Village, and I bet I had the better social life.

I want to come back to the BRIC economies—that is, Brazil, Russia, India and China. This country exports more to Ireland than we do to all those countries combined. I ask the noble Lord: what further action we can take to improve our exports to these BRIC countries?

[Lord Popat]

I thank the noble Lord for those comments. The BRIC countries are very important. As I said earlier, we have a very special relationship with emerging markets, in particular the BRIC countries. Exports to BRIC countries fell by 15% between 2008 and 2009, but grew by as much as 66% between 2009 and 2011. Exports to the BRIC countries now make up 6% of total UK exports. I agree that there is huge potential. My noble friend Lord Green has visited all the BRIC countries twice in the past 18 months to make sure that we have more trade.

The noble Lord is quite right that we do more trade with Ireland than with India. With 1.2 billion customers, we do around £13 billion a year in two-way trade with India. There is huge potential. The Prime Minister himself is putting special emphasis on the BRIC countries and I am sure that over time we will increase our exports to the BRIC countries—which we have already done in the past two years, by 66%, which is pretty good.