Queen’s Speech

Lord Rana Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rana (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the gracious Speech. In the past few weeks there has been all manner and shape of talk about the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union and the resulting benefits or disadvantages. However, there is hardly any talk about another equally important organisation—the Commonwealth.

Her Majesty the Queen has provided outstanding leadership to the Commonwealth over the past 60-plus years. The Commonwealth has proved a great asset and is a potential source of strength for all its member nations. Of the 53 members, four are developed countries—the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. There are some fast-developing major economies such as India, South Africa and Nigeria, and many other member countries rich in natural resources and cultural heritage are now developing their economies. However, there could be a much more vibrant, closer, practical and beneficial relationship between the member states in the Commonwealth and there is much more scope to develop business between the Commonwealth countries. A focused and strategic effort to develop trade between the member countries would help all round. This would supplement the increasing exchange of students, academics and research scholars between Commonwealth countries and encourage the development of new knowledge-based enterprises.

The Prime Minister led a large delegation to India last year aimed at developing business, educational and tourism links. However, the level of business between the two countries is nowhere near what it should be. There is a new Government in Delhi after the recent elections whose main focus is on development and business. Of approximately 814 million voters in India, nearly 550 million actually voted. That is about 66% of the total. The result was a clear mandate for the Bharatiya Janata Party. There has, however, been much negative comment in the press about the BJP and, indeed, its leader, Mr Narendra Modi. Various malign and unjustified allegations have been made against him. The BJP was commonly labelled as a Hindu fundamentalist party and Mr Modi was unjustly blamed for the communal riots in Gujarat in 2002. This charge against him has been proved untrue.

Mr David Cameron, our Prime Minister, was the first world leader to congratulate Mr Modi on his success. Her Majesty’s Government need to work hard to strengthen their relations with Mr Modi. Indeed, the Government will no doubt wish to build on their relations with all the major democratic parties of India. Mr Modi is pro business. The electorate have given him a clear mandate to carry on the economic development of India and the national and international business community has shown confidence in the new Government. The stock market value in India has gone up approximately 20% in the past few weeks. It is predicted that India’s GDP will double in less than 10 years’ time.

The UK has an outstanding opportunity to play an active role in developing trade with India and so become a partner in India’s economic growth and welfare. It should be a win-win situation for both countries. India is a union of 29 states and seven union territories with a population of 1.2 billion. To develop trade, we here in the UK would best have representation in each state. Here, I would like to express an interest, having led many trade delegations from Northern Ireland to India since 2001. As a result, Northern Ireland has attracted many more IT companies, employing about 6,000 people. There is no reason why the trade between India and the UK cannot double over the next five years. There is little barrier to such growth. Most barriers are more imaginary than real. There is so much in common between the two countries and a tremendous amount of good will which will readily facilitate working together even more closely.