Oral Answers to Questions

Adam Afriyie Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

4. What steps her Department has taken to help increase global export opportunities for British farmers.

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

10. What steps her Department has taken to help increase global export opportunities for British farmers.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

16. What steps her Department has taken to help increase global export opportunities for British farmers.

Oral Answers to Questions

Adam Afriyie Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Conor Burns]

This week we have published the proposals for the United States deal, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade is ably leading on Australia, Canada, Japan and, potentially, the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership. She will come to the House in due course, hopefully soon, to lay out full proposals for the terms of those negotiations[Official Report, 9 March 2020, Vol. 673, c. 2MC.].

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

As the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Ghana and other parts of west Africa, I am delighted to be meeting a delegation this afternoon to talk about our expertise in science and technology and how we can help to support development in those countries. Does the Minister agree that, as we look out to the rest of the world post Brexit, it is trade with developing nations that will deliver the jobs, prosperity and mutual benefit we seek?

[Conor Burns]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. He does an excellent job, for which I thank him, as trade envoy to Ghana. We see enormous potential for development and people’s life chances, particularly on the continent of Africa, in free trade between us and Africa, and around the world. Free trade is the route to prosperity, and it is the route to lift people out of poverty. This Government will always champion it for the most deprived people in the world.

United States Tariffs: Steel and Aluminium

Adam Afriyie Excerpts

Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

We are working alongside the industry to look at that. My colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy are engaged in that work. The hon. Lady knows that Skinningrove is a very good example of what I was discussing earlier. It is one of the areas where we make specialist steel that goes into the US programme, so the concept that we should be taken to task on a national security basis for providing the US with something that it needs for its own security programme does not make much sense.

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

It seems to me that tariffs and protectionism fundamentally undermine the industries that they seek to protect. Can the Secretary of State confirm that it remains the British Government’s position that we are committed to world-wide free trade? Will he be seeking in some way to gain a bilateral opt-out from these tariffs as soon as we are able to do so?

[Dr Fox]

As I have said, we will work alongside the European Union because we have a duty of sincere co-operation for as long as we are members. I have often taken the view that it is strange that people should want us to obey the rules when we want them and not when we do not want them. We have a legal duty as EU members to fulfil this. We intend to do so, and we will work with our EU partners accordingly. As a country—this has been true under Governments of both colours—we have believed in free trade. We have been a global champion of free trade. Let us remember that free trade is the means by which we have taken 1 billion people out of abject poverty in a generation, and we as a country should be very proud that we have been in the lead in that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Adam Afriyie Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

On the latter point, the GREAT campaign has been moved to the Department for International Trade and I am keen for it to encourage people in this country to buy British where possible. He makes an important point about the wider negotiations in that the European Union has a huge trade surplus with the United Kingdom. It is more in their interest than ours—if that is possible—to maintain an open, free-trading environment.

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

Currently, 21 trade envoys deal with about 50 markets around the world, yet with the huge opportunities available post-Brexit, does my right hon. Friend agree that it may be wise to look at boosting both the number of trade envoys and the resources available to our people on the ground overseas?

[Dr Fox]

The programme of prime ministerial trade envoys set up by the previous Prime Minister has been extremely successful and has delivered notable results given the resources initially allocated to it. The Department and No. 10 are looking at how we can improve on the success of that programme, which will depend upon the distribution of DIT’s staff overseas. I hope to make an announcement about that programme in the near future.