UK Trade Performance
Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Kemi Badenoch(6 months, 1 week ago)
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The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kemi Badenoch)
With permission, I would like to make a statement on the UK’s trade performance.
When I am overseas, as Secretary of State for Business and Trade, other countries speak with nothing but admiration and respect for what we are achieving in Britain. As the chief executive officer of Nissan Global recently remarked:
“It is surprising to hear people asking why they should choose the UK”—
because, in his words,
“we have both great people and great talent here.”
Certainly, in the firms that I have visited up and down this country, I am proud to see our employers and exporters firing on all cylinders. Yet, when I return to Westminster, some people seem unaware of the progress that we have made as an independent trading nation. Today, I want to put that right.
The latest trade data, published by the Office for National Statistics and also by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, should give everyone in this House cause for celebration and renewed pride in our country. They confirmed that the strategy the public voted for on 23 June 2016 is delivering. Leaving the European Union was a vote of confidence in the project of the United Kingdom, and we are seeing results. Since that referendum, the UK economy has grown faster than that of Germany, Italy and Japan, and contrary to gloomy predictions, our manufacturing productivity has grown more than that of Germany, France, Italy and the USA.
According to the latest UN statistics, the UK, outside the EU, became the world’s fourth biggest exporter in 2022, overtaking Japan, the Netherlands and France. The value of UK exports was £862 billion in the 12 months to February 2024. That builds on progress we have made in growing our exports outside the confines of the EU. Exports are now 2% above 2018 when adjusted for inflation. Services exports are at an all-time high. A summary of these figures, along with the most recent business and labour statistics, were published on gov.uk in April. Together, they definitively disprove the claims of those who prophesied a catastrophic economic collapse when we left the EU to become a sovereign nation.
Today, we are selling not only more services to EU countries than ever before, but record amounts of services to the rest of the world, too. We are the largest net exporter of financial and insurance services in the world. Far from an exodus of businesses out of the UK, European firms have doubled down on their commitments to the UK. In 2020, Unilever chose to headquarter exclusively in London over Rotterdam. Since 2022, Cadbury has brought more chocolate production back to the UK from Germany. In the same year, Shell moved its headquarters out of the Netherlands and into the UK.
We are tearing down the barriers to trade. Since the start of 2022, we have resolved barriers all over the world, estimated to be worth more than £15 billion to UK businesses over a five-year period. In 2023, this was equivalent to removing around £1 million-worth of trade barriers every single hour. British pork farmers are benefiting from newly agreed access to the Mexican market, which is worth £80 million over the same period. Our work on bottle labelling for UK gin and whisky has driven up exports to Chile by tonnes. We have ended the US ban on British beef and lamb.
We are working to deliver a strategy on a situation that faces the whole world, not just our friends and neighbours in Europe. This is crucial if we are to lock Britain into the future of where global growth will be. In 2022, the EU took more than 60% of UK goods exports. In 2023, this was 47%, because UK goods exports to the EU remained broadly flat, while exports to non-EU countries rose by around 70% in real terms.
We are going further to seize the benefits of an independent trade policy. We have deals with 73 countries around the world, with more to come under this Government, plus the most comprehensive trade deal to which the EU has ever agreed. Later this year, we will join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, one of the world’s biggest trading blocs. This will mean that more than 99% of UK goods will be eligible for zero tariffs in some of the Asia Pacific’s most dynamic economies. British business is set to benefit.
As well as service exports, where Britain excels, our top goods sales were in cars, mechanical-powered generators, medicines, pharmaceutical products and aircraft components. We have one of the world’s largest manufacturing sectors. Productivity in our manufacturing industry has grown faster than in every other G7 nation since 2010. Hundreds of businesses in steel, chemicals and other sectors stand to benefit from the newly introduced British industry supercharger, which is bringing energy costs down for key industries. Our £4.5 billion advanced manufacturing plan is opening new markets and removing obstacles to growth while helping to crowd in new funding for plants and factories throughout the UK. Every penny the UK Government spend on manufacturing is matched fivefold by the growth creators of the private sector. This pro-investment approach is working: the UK’s automotive sector attracted £3.7 billion-worth of greenfield foreign investment in 2022 alone.
The Labour party will remember Mr Alastair Campbell, who asserted during the referendum that if we leave the EU, Nissan will leave. Nissan is still here. The two new 100% electric models are set to be built at its Sunderland this year. More Minis are rolling off production lines in Oxfordshire today, thanks to a £600 million investment from BMW. These are firms that look for opportunities the world over and decide that the UK is the place to be. Listening to some of the remarks made in this House and elsewhere, people would think that our country was not worth investing in at all. Let us be clear: the British ingenuity and industry that made this country prosper in the past still exists today, and even if those on the Opposition Benches cannot see it, international investors certainly can.
The statistics published by my Department show that the UK’s inward FDI stock has reached more than £2 trillion. Our FDI stock is the highest in Europe—more than Germany, France and Italy combined. The most recent OECD data show that our employment rate is higher than that of the US, France and Italy.
The regulatory freedoms that we gained by leaving the EU have allowed our smarter regulation programme to cut the red tape that has been holding them back. We have already reformed the working time directive reporting requirements, saving businesses up to £1 billion per year. We recently announced that we will raise the thresholds that determine company size, reducing burdens on smaller businesses, and remove low-value and overlapping reporting requirements.
Those changes will make reporting simpler and deliver savings of around £150 million per year to UK companies, with small and medium-sized companies benefiting by around £145 million. It is no surprise that the most recent NatWest SME business activity index shows that output is increasing strongly, driven by renewed manufacturing sector expansion, and companies’ activity expectations remain upbeat. These things do not happen by accident, and I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will welcome those figures.
I have no doubt that this statement will disappoint some people, as it does not align with the story that they want to tell of a nation riven by injustice and economic stagnation, clinging to Europe for any hope for the future. That is not to say that everything is perfect—of course there is still more to do—but we are not alone in our problems. Ministers in other countries are quick to remind me about supply-chain issues affecting everything from getting car components to stocking supermarket shelves. They tell me about how they are coping with problems in the jobs market, as societies from Germany to Japan get older.
Only when I am back in the UK am I told that all these issues are down to Brexit. Far from it. Our plans are working, and Britain is thriving as an independent sovereign home of free enterprise and free trade. That is what the recent figures published by my Department, by the ONS, and by the UN tell me. It is what our businesses, exporters, employers and investors all tell me, and I hope that hon. Members present can see it too. I commend this statement to the House.
Kemi Badenoch
I understand the point that my right hon. Friend makes. This is something that we have heard from some bodies in industry. The auto sector is giving us two different messages. Some people want us to bring the mandate forward and make the change faster; others want us to delay it. It is a very tricky balance. We understand the concerns. We do not want to put additional burdens on business, so he is right to make that point. I have made representations to the Transport Secretary, but this is his policy area, and he will make the ultimate decision.
Kemi Badenoch
I thank my hon. Friend for the question; I will check my diary to see if I am available for the event, but I am glad that he raises the issue of trade with Japan. We signed an upgraded FTA with Japan after leaving the EU, so these roll-over deals are no longer roll-over deals, because we are adding more into them, especially the digital trade chapters. These are deals fit for the 21st century—the age we live in—rather than the 20th century.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee.
Post Office Governance and Horizon Compensation Schemes
Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Kemi Badenoch(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Kemi Badenoch
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all his fantastic work as the postal affairs Minister, and I can confirm that. My officials have looked through all the correspondence, and all the minutes of the conversations that Mr Staunton had with the Department. They found absolutely nothing, and he did not raise the matter in his call with me. If it were something that officials had said to him, surely he would have mentioned it to Ministers—either myself or the postal affairs Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). The fact that Mr Staunton did not do so shows that it is quite likely something that he is making up.
Points of Order
Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Kemi Badenoch(11 months, 1 week ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker
First, I believe the Minister did confirm that the order has been laid, and it should therefore be available in the Vote Office. However, the Secretary of State may like to confirm that, or if she does not have the information immediately available, to say that she will report back about it.
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Kemi Badenoch)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would like to confirm that the order has been laid. I have just heard from officials that it has been laid.
Hon. Members
Kemi Badenoch
It was laid well before the statement to the House. I am sorry it has not been published, but it was laid, so we have done our bit.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I think the Minister has confirmed that it was laid. We will find out why it was not in the Vote Office and come back to the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty).
I call the shadow Leader of the House.
Gender Recognition
Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Kemi Badenoch(11 months, 1 week ago)
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The Minister for Women and Equalities (Kemi Badenoch)
It is this Government’s policy that the UK does not recognise self-identification for the purpose of obtaining a gender recognition certificate. However, the Government are determined that everyone should be able to live their lives free from unfair discrimination. We are proud to have passed the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 and Turing’s law. We also introduced a modernised and affordable gender-recognition process, while recognising the need to maintain checks and balances.
Today, we are laying an order to update the list of approved overseas countries and territories for parliamentary approval. That is provided for under section 1(1)(b) of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and follows previous periodic updates. This is long overdue. The list of approved overseas countries and territories was last updated in 2011. A commitment was made to keep the list under review, so this is a further step in implementing our response to the Gender Recognition Act consultation.
We are doing this because some countries and territories on the list have made changes to their systems and would not now be considered to have similarly rigorous systems as the UK’s. Inadvertently allowing self-ID for obtaining GRCs is not Government policy. It should not be possible for a person who does not satisfy the criteria for UK legal gender recognition to use the overseas route to do so. We also need to ensure parity with UK applicants: it would not be fair for the overseas route to be based on less rigorous evidential requirements. That would damage the integrity and credibility of the process in the Gender Recognition Act.
We have finalised details of overseas countries and territories to be removed and added to the list laid today via an affirmative statutory instrument. We have undertaken thorough checks in collaboration with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to verify our understanding of each overseas system in question and measure it against the UK’s standard route to obtain gender recognition.
My officials and I formally engaged with colleagues and Ministers from devolved Governments in advance of laying this statutory instrument. The Government are committed to ensuring that this outcome of the 2020 Gender Recognition Act consultation is followed through and upheld, and the overseas list will be updated via statutory instrument more regularly in future.
This work is important because of the complex interactions between the Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act 2010. The complexity of the legal situation was reinforced by the judgment in December 2022 by Lady Haldane in the judicial review brought by For Women Scotland, upheld on appeal last month by the Inner House of the Court of Session, which effectively stated that a gender recognition certificate changes a person’s sex for the purposes of the protections conferred by the Equality Act. Labour’s Gender Recognition Act 2004 and Equality Act 2010 did not envisage that the words “sex” and “gender” would be used as differently as they are today. That is having an impact on all policy that draws on those Acts, including on tackling conversion practices and guidance for gender-questioning children.
To that end, I am exploring how we can rectify these issues across the board and provide legal certainty. That will reduce the tensions that have emerged as a result of the confusion around the terms “sex” and “gender”, first by ensuring that we are evidence-led in the approach we take—for example, when considering appropriate treatment of children on the NHS, we should be fully informed by the final report from the Cass review, which is due early next year; given the complexity of this area, the review is understandably taking longer than originally expected—secondly, by ensuring consistency in how we implement policy across the board; and thirdly, by exploring whether we need more clarity in law. For example, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has recommended that we clarify the definition of sex in the Equality Act, while ensuring that any further proposed legislation fully takes into account the complexity of issues.
We should not leave ordinary people to suffer unintended consequences because we in Parliament are shy of dealing with difficult issues. I commend this statement to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. It is not possible to intervene while the Minister is responding during a statement.
Kemi Badenoch
The hon. Lady questioned why certain countries are on the list and others are not. Again, I heard lots of laughter from Members on the Back Benches. I am going to have to reinforce this really important point: this is not a tool for foreign policy. This is a tool that is used to make sure that other countries’ systems are as rigorous as ours. I understand why people will have concerns, but this is not about virtue signalling as to which countries we like or which countries we do not like—far from it. This is about whether another country’s system meets our guidelines.
The hon. Lady talked about countries such as China. It is a very good question and I will explain to her why some countries that we might not expect to be are on the list. I will use the example of Kazakhstan, where to obtain gender recognition applicants must undergo gender reassignment surgery. That includes forced sterilisation, something which we condemn completely. It is banned in our country and is a form of conversion practice. Recognising certification for someone who has undergone that is a compassionate acknowledgement of what some transgender people in other countries have had to go through to obtain their certification. Are we really going to say to people with GRCs from China or Kazakhstan who have been forcibly sterilised by their state that we do not think they are serious about legally changing their gender? Of course not. That is why we have included certain countries. If people have gone through such extreme measures for gender recognition, we should not be giving them any additional issues here.
There are countries with which we work very closely, and with which we carried out a good deal of extended engagement. I am also the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, and I work with embassies across the world and Ministers across the world. I spoke to other countries’ Ministers about this issue, and they recognised the sovereignty of the UK. Ambassadors have been notified. We engaged in a great deal of collaboration with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office throughout this process, and we are monitoring the international reaction to the legislation. Members can be assured that diplomatic posts have been notified of the changes, and we have provided them with comprehensive question-and-answer documents that address any potential misconceptions about what this statutory instrument does.
That returns me to what I was saying about why I am so careful with the interventions that I make about equalities. Labour Members do not do their homework. They stand up in the Chamber and produce repetitive lines from social media. They think that they can use LGBT people as a shield for silly policy. We are going to do the policy properly: we are taking a lot of time to do this right. Along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), the Minister for Equalities, I am keen to ensure that LGBT people across the UK understand that this Government are making sure that we are doing things in a way that will not collapse once it makes contact with reality.
Kemi Badenoch
I certainly support any effort to clarify the law, and we should start from first principles. No child is born in the wrong body, and no child should be put on a pathway towards irreversible medical transition. I am also conscious that it will take time to amend law, and I am therefore focusing on what will work for now. That is why we are publishing guidance to give clarity to schools as soon as possible. I remember discussing the growing problem of what we describe as social transitioning with my right hon. Friend when she was the Minister for Women and Equalities. I am pleased that she has come round to my point of view, and I am keen to work with her to see how we can ensure that the legislation works properly in practice.
Kemi Badenoch
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. This is one area where we are trying to provide clarity. As a result of the Haldane judgment, there is now confusion between biological sex and legal sex and certainly in terms of the interpretation that people put on it. A gender recognition certificate had different standards in terms of what could be obtained until this judgment. We want to make it clear, for instance, that single-sex spaces will still be protected. We will do a lot more to clarify that. As I said, the Haldane judgment changes that, which is one reason why we need to look at this very carefully. There were 30 pages in the Appeal Court report, which shows how complex this issue is. The law is no longer clear. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the law is now a mess because of changing times. We need to provide clarity. We cannot assume that the wording as was intended in 2004 and 2010 still works in 2023, and we are carrying out work to fix that.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I will be calling only those who were here at the start of the statement. Members will know if they were not here, so I do not expect them to stand.
Elections Bill
Debate between Baroness Winterton of Doncaster and Kemi BadenochWednesday 27th April 2022
(2 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Elections Act 2022 View all Elections Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 153-I Marshalled list for Consideration of Commons Amendments and Reason - (27 Apr 2022)
The Minister for Levelling Up Communities (Kemi Badenoch)
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 22.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendments (a) to (i) to the words restored to the Bill.
Lords amendment 23, and Government motion to disagree.
Government amendments (a) to (k) in lieu of Lords amendments 22 and 23.
Lords amendment 86, and Government motion to disagree.
Lords amendments 1 to 21, 24 to 85 and 87 to 126.
Kemi Badenoch
The Bill has returned to the Commons after wide-ranging and often intense debate in the other place. I am grateful to my colleagues there, Lord True, Baroness Scott and Earl Howe, for their efforts in ensuring that the Bill was able to benefit from that scrutiny. The Bill delivers on key manifesto commitments to protect our democracy as well as a range of recommendations from consultations, parliamentarians, Select Committees, international observers and electoral stakeholders.
I will come to the more positive highlights of the Bill’s passage shortly, but I must, with regret, begin with the areas where the Government cannot agree with the changes made. We disagree with Lords amendment 86, tabled by Lord Willetts, Lord Woolley, Baroness Lister of Burtersett and the Lord Bishop of Coventry, which suggests a long list of new documents that could be used as a form of identification at polling stations, including non-photographic documents such as a bank statement, a council tax letter, a P45 or P60 form. The Government have been clear that the most straightforward and secure way of confirming someone’s identity is photographic identification. The Electoral Commission found this to be the best approach to pursue in the pilots undertaken by the Government in 2018 and 2019.