Schools: Online Learning

Lord Risby Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, we have given comprehensive guidance in Get Help with Remote Education for teachers and the workforce. Yes, cybercrime issues are a focus for the Department for Education. We are aware that that is part of what we must help schools to procure in future to ensure that the networks are secure.

[Lord Risby (Con)]

My Lords, while I very much welcome the contribution that the Government are making to online learning and indeed to internet access, the Minister will be aware of the great mental pressures on families and young people in this regard. Does she have any plans to support supplementary strengthening services for young people, such as the National Citizen Service or indeed any other schemes specifically aimed at supporting young people?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lord, as well as the priority of getting children back into school as soon as possible, obviously, we want them to be taking part in those kinds of activities, and physical education was a key part of the guidance. DCMS has given £16.5 million to a Youth Covid-19 Support Fund to support grass-roots and national youth organisations at this time.

Trade Bill

Lord Risby Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansarad): House of Lords
Monday 21st January 2019 Lords Chamber

Essentially, government procurement—or local government procurement—is the lifeblood for the future of many small businesses, whether in weaving, which can be very high-tech, or in the dynamic industry that has been mentioned. Therefore, it is helpful to put on the record what the Government’s likely intentions are. As I have said before, and as we will no doubt talk about in the discussion on the next group of amendments, the Government have committed not only to carry over the GPA schedules but to revise them going forward; they have already said that in discussions with the WTO. It is appropriate that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is asking for that positive statement today.

[Lord Risby (Con)]

My Lords, as one of the Prime Minister’s trade envoys and as a long-standing deputy chairman of the Small Business Bureau, I support the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Lansley. I salute my noble friend Lord Livingston’s efforts, who helped to transform our external commercial activities.

Highlighting the importance of the small business sector is key to what the department is now doing. That is a huge cultural change because, although our small and medium-sized businesses sector is vibrant, it has not been brought into the loop of trade promotion. Huge effort is being undertaken there. I mention that because, earlier in the debate, there was an implication of inaction in the department. I have seen for myself how utterly untrue that is. For example, you can see on the website how small and medium-sized businesses are being offered communication skills and efforts are being made to encourage them; a sophisticated system is being put into effect.

My noble friend talked about strategy. Simply, there has been something of an oversight as far as the sector is concerned, particularly in terms of trade promotion. What is happening now is definitely a considerable change. The amendment highlights the importance of the sector for the future of this country and its future dynamic economic activity, which I hope will happen post Brexit, and offers a framework for participation in procurement. I hope that the Minister will give some sort of encouragement or indication of whether this is at the forefront of her thinking and that of the department when she replies to the debate because I believe that an important message was relayed by my noble friend in his remarks.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, I am a huge supporter of the small business sector and its growth. Indeed, some of the issues raised in Amendment 4, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, are also important. However, like other noble Lords, I am not sure that they should be written into the Bill. I want to take this opportunity to ask the Minister a question, which she may prefer to answer in writing. Essentially, I want to pick up on the points about the importance of small businesses made by my noble friend Lord Livingston —who, as has been said, did so much as Trade Minister—and my noble friend Lord Risby.

My noble friend Lord Lansley is right that some countries try to discriminate in the procurement process in various ways. He rightly quoted the US Small Business Act. What can we do about that in policy terms? In particular, can we improve the process facing SMEs trying to win contracts either internationally or here in the UK? From my own experience, including a period serving on the Efficiency Board in the Cabinet Office, bidding rules are complex and vastly expensive—as a result, it is said, of European Union laws and requirements. Is work in hand to simplify our rules as we leave the EU to help SMEs win a bigger share of procurement, as I think we would all like?

Trade Bill

Lord Risby Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 11th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Risby (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Viscount, who always speaks clearly and directly. It also gives me great pleasure to add my congratulations to my noble friend Lady Meyer, whom I have known for many years. She brings efficiency, competence and great humanity, as shown in her speech, and I know that all those characteristics will be well represented in her contributions to your Lordships’ House.

It is a personal pleasure to add some comments on the Trade Bill. For some years, I have been one of the Prime Minister’s trade envoys, trying to help British businesses with commercial opportunities abroad. I pay tribute to my fellow trade envoys in both Houses of Parliament, across all parties, who do this voluntarily but with much enthusiasm and, in many instances, considerable success.

I also applaud the Secretary of State for International Trade for his incredible energy and dedication to the task at hand. I can only hope that whatever vitamin pill he takes is made in Britain. He has a strong ministerial team, not least in my noble friend, who brings such immense experience to her role. Her department offers such help and professionalism to me and my fellow trade envoys.

We should remind ourselves of the Bill’s objectives, which are not complicated: to keep important trading partners that currently have relationships with us via the European Union; to collect and share information, where there is certainly much more work to be done because it is imperfect at the moment; to enable us to defend our commercial and industrial sector from inappropriate trading practices; and, most importantly, to establish powers to move from having current trade agreements via the EU to dealing with them ourselves, given that trade policy has been an exclusive EU competence.

Sitting, as I do, on two of your Lordships’ EU committees, we have heard repeatedly, and passionately at times, about the need for British business and our business partners abroad to have a sense of continuity and order during and after the Brexit process. This is all inextricably intertwined. In addition to these key elements of our economic life and prosperity post Brexit, it is crucial that we stand out as a beacon of free, unimpeded trade, upon which historically we have thrived and in which we have been a role model. Although President Trump may have highlighted perceived unfairness and lack of balance in bilateral or multilateral trade architecture, there is a great danger of a destructive, tit-for-tat approach developing. That could seriously undermine the world economy, which has in some measure been sustained by much more open markets over the years as well as low interest rates and generous liquidity.

One of our greatest challenges in this age is the problem of migratory flows from poorer countries. It is so obvious that any attempts further to restrain free international trade would most seriously affect the poorest people on our planet. In this context, I welcome the strong links developing between us and the WTO.

This country has an enviable reputation for transparency and has led the charge against bribery and corruption, whether direct or indirect, which regrettably influences commercial decisions in some countries. However, I should add that, in my role in trade promotion, our firm commitments and tough laws to preclude this are much appreciated and commented on by Governments seeking to tackle this corrosive activity.

One element of our departure from the EU is our participation at present in the Agreement on Government Procurement. It is crucial that we maintain access to global public procurement markets, so I welcome our involvement in and intention to join the GPA after we leave the EU. As many of your Lordships will know, government procurement is a substantial part of the business profile of many of our actual and potential markets.

For some years, I have been the deputy chairman of the Small Business Bureau, trying to encourage a suitable tax and regulatory framework for the sector. However, it is a fair generalisation to say that our economy has been very consumer driven. I express my admiration for and appreciation of the Government’s real attempts to stimulate the small and medium-sized businesses in our country into getting involved in overseas trade activity. Many of our European neighbours have moved on much more successfully than we have in changing the culture of export promotion, particularly with respect to the SME group.

In this context, I want to touch on my personal experience as a trade envoy. In the past few months, we have signed contracts in Algeria, the country of my particular responsibility, to the tune of about $1 billion, mostly in the energy sector but also in the defence sector. This followed a trade show held last year in Algiers, organised largely by our embassy there, where numerous small, superb, defence-related British companies showed their brilliant range of activity.

My final observation is on the role of securing business in situ. Last month, in Cape Town, the Prime Minister announced the most welcome new partnership for Africa, an additional £4 billion programme for UK investment in African countries that will pave the way for £4 billion of private sector financing. That includes £3.5 billion through the Government’s development finance institution, the CDC, and an African investment summit, set to take place next year. This is very important in the context of what we are trying to do to explore new markets.

The House should be very grateful to my noble friend Lady McIntosh for pointing out the importance and efficacy of having specialists—in agricultural products in this case—attached to our embassies. However, I wish to be blunt: the trade promotion grind is often done at a local level. The Prime Minister talked about our national interest. In my view, it is patently absurd that the Foreign Office budget is less than 1/10th of our overseas aid budget. Indeed, the Department for International Trade’s budget is a quarter of that of the Foreign Office. It is totally disproportionate.

Particularly in countries which are quite statist, a number of our fiercely competitive European neighbours have established chambers of commerce or invested in a whole range of skilled, local employees, often fanning out and securing business in their particular countries by talking to governors or key business people. The digging out of investment opportunities by people in situ will be a critical part of the architecture of our winning export business in the future, particularly in the new regime which we will have.

I conclude by saying that there are huge challenges which face us post Brexit and I want to acknowledge the key role, which I greatly admire, of those who are involved in this activity, particularly in our posts abroad. It has to be recognised, as part of the topography of trade promotion abroad, that they are appropriately resourced to enable us to compete effectively, which is in all our interests whatever our attitude is to Brexit, and to ensure our capacity to trade successfully in the future.

Exports: Africa and the Commonwealth

Lord Risby Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Risby (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Popat for so effectively introducing the debate this evening. It is so timely. As we leave the EU, it is absolutely necessary that we forge new relationships with countries abroad. My noble friend is, like me, one of the Prime Minister’s trade envoys. He brings immense experience of the real world of business that is so valued in his role.

It is also a profound pleasure to welcome my noble friend the Minister to the Front Bench. She brings to your Lordships’ House immense professional experience. We greatly look forward to her contributions to our debates and discussions, born of her considerable professional experience, and, of course, to her maiden speech this evening.

There are 28 Prime Minister’s trade envoys across the party divides and in both Houses of Parliament. Indeed, it is an honour and privilege to be one of them, in my case in Africa, specifically Algeria. In the five years I have undertaken this role I have seen a much greater drive to make our exports more coherent and efficient, but, as my noble friend Lord Popat observed, we continue to run a trade imbalance.

In trying to remedy this, and simply as an example of real life, I will touch on our commercial activities in Algeria. Very well-known energy-related companies have been operating there for years, such as BP and Petrofac. Of BP’s five major international projects, two are in Algeria. In addition, there is at hand and on offer British experience on renewables and our unique experience in the North Sea. But the dramatic fall in the price of petrol and oil was a wake-up call for Algeria. This is now a reason for it to want to diversify its economy. Indeed, that is exactly the advice the IMF gave it: to increase fiscal revenues from non-hydrocarbon sources.

There is one area of our national life where we are simply the world’s best. No country—this applies to a number of African countries—can fully realise its potential without a fully functioning financial sector. In October, the Lord Mayor of London generously threw open Mansion House to welcome the Algerian Minister of Finance and his highly professional team to a conference identifying key areas for financial innovation and reform. Specific visits were made to the London Stock Exchange, with its excellent outreach programme, Lloyd’s and Tech City. As a result, three weeks later, we together in Algiers identified key areas such as stock exchange development, Islamic finance, which is of growing importance, and regulatory reform proposals. That was a very important moment in our exemplary bilateral relationship. No other country in Europe can offer what we do in this key area for any country that wishes to develop and have a more sophisticated economic base.

Another area where we can offer the highest-quality guidance and state-of-the-art technology is the defence sector. I thank the DSO for its drive and skill, which I saw in action recently when 20 British companies engaged with their Algerian counterparts. So many countries, not least in Africa, realistically face threats from terrorism and cyberwarfare, and they often have porous borders. I see all the time outstanding companies, such as Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems, offering the highest-quality solutions to those challenges, as do so many smaller, specialised companies. The expansion of UK Export Finance is welcome and has enhanced our capacity to provide financial support. I applaud the Secretary of State for advancing so dynamically the interests of small and medium-sized companies. Our start-up rate, particularly in digital and communications technology, is outstanding. In this country, we have developed fiscal and employment incentives and know-how we can readily share with business partners abroad. Tech City is a shining example to the world; it is open and welcoming.

However, it is worth making some other observations. In our efforts to promote British goods and services, we need to reflect on the additional pressure that it is putting on our embassies abroad. As the Prime Minister’s trade envoy, I see what it adds to the embassies’ workload. There is a debate to be had about the size and scope of our overseas aid budget, but I point out the disproportionality of our commitment to foreign aid relative to the funding and proper staffing of our embassies, which respond magnificently in my experience, despite the far more comprehensive funding of embassies and trade personnel by our trade rivals.

In addition, over the years our visa-granting system has become centralised. For Africa, it is in Johannesburg, with much reduced flexibility being given to our ambassadors. This has led to excruciating and sometimes embarrassing delays in granting visas, if at all, to key individuals who are important to us in promoting trade and in political partnerships. This issue needs to be revisited.

Penultimately, I pay fulsome tribute to my noble friend Lord Howell, who has unrivalled understanding of the world at large and who so effectively champions the cause of the Commonwealth and its potential. There are many countries, such as Algeria, that would like to have associate status—something I have raised with the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth—which would add to the force and influence of the Commonwealth, which is a compelling international asset for all its members.

I also applaud the significant energy and efforts of my noble friend Lord Marland. All African countries have enormous young populations who easily grasp modern technologies. We can and should do more to assist in training programmes and in encouraging the right fiscal framework to stimulate new business activity. We have the major asset of the English language—the language of modern-day expression and communication.

With the excellent back-up I have received from DIT and the Foreign Office, the brilliance of UK goods and services is now becoming much more recognised. The opportunities for us in Africa are enormous, and I am proud that we are increasingly seizing the opportunity to engage and encourage British businesses to exploit the considerable market opportunities there.