Lord Tebbit
Main Page: Lord Tebbit (Conservative - Life peer)
Lord Popat
My Lords, this time last year I asked for an ad-hoc cross-party committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Cope, to be set up. We had a report in the early part of this year, and received a response from business this week on what we can do to help our SMEs to export more, including how the UK Export Finance scheme can work more effectively for those who export in those countries.
Lord Tebbit
My Lords, can my noble friend tell me whether there is any other trading bloc in the world with which we have a similar sized trading deficit, and which on top of that charges us money for the privilege of being part of it?
Lord Popat
My Lords, I expected that question from my noble friend. There is no other country in the world with which we have such a huge trade deficit. We have it with the European Union, but we have a large number of benefits as well. The £7 billion contribution that we pay to it gives us the benefit of free trade and a free market to other parts of the world. However, some of the huge deficit that we are talking about is offset by the invisible trade that we do with it. Most importantly, 20% of the goods that we import from Europe become part of the raw material that we export elsewhere.