Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andrew Bowie and Gavin Newlands(2 years ago)
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Andrew Bowie
This Department and, in fact, this entire Government are committed to growing our exports. We are going to export our way to growth and, in the 12 months to December 2022, trade was worth £748 billion. We are rolling out our export support service, making export champions more visible and more available across all nations and regions of this United Kingdom. We are committed to working with small and medium-sized enterprises to get them into exporting and we are supporting those companies that export already. We are driving up exports from this country and our new independent trade policy—something that, if the Labour party had its way, we would not have in the first place—allows us to do just that.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Andrew Bowie)
I can indeed. At the green trade and investment expo in Gateshead last month, I saw many companies from around the UK that are engaged in exporting renewable energies technology around the world. Indeed, the UK is home to world-leading companies in the design and development of renewable energy, and the Department for International Trade has already supported over £5 billion of exports across the energy and infrastructure sectors in the past.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
The Centre for Business Prosperity at Aston University has estimated that 42% of British exports have disappeared from European shelves since Brexit. Is the Secretary of State proud of her party’s 12-year record in charge of export policy?
Andrew Bowie
The hon. Member obviously was not listening to what I said earlier. Trade with the EU is actually up 18%. Instead of coming here and talking down Scottish and British businesses that are exporting to the continent and around the world, he should join us—he should be here championing Scotch whisky exports, which are up; he should be here championing Scotch beef exports, which are up; and he should be here championing the great Scottish financial services exports, which are up around the world and transforming lives for the better.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andrew Bowie and Gavin Newlands(2 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Andrew Bowie)
The hon. Members will be aware that His Majesty’s Treasury leads on this policy area. However, I am happy to provide them with an update on the support that my Department is providing to Scottish exporters during the cost of living crisis. The DIT Scotland team based in Edinburgh—I am sure that they are pleased to see His Majesty’s Government increasing their presence in Edinburgh—was established in 2021 with trade and investment expertise dedicated to supporting Scotland’s businesses to grow through exporting overseas. Scottish businesses can access many UK Government services, including the export support service, the UK Export Academy, UK Export Finance and DIT’s overseas specialists in over 100 markets across the world.
Gavin Newlands
I welcome the Minister to his place. However, let us compare export growth in the first quarter of 2019—pre-Brexit and pre-covid—with the first quarter of 2022. In Belgium, it was plus 49%, in Switzerland, plus 42%, in Poland, plus 35%, in Australia, plus 46%, in the Netherlands, plus 23%, in Italy, plus 23%, in Spain, plus 19%, and so on—I could go on and on. The UK’s figure was zero. Does he agree with Saxo Bank’s assessment published in Le Monde that political instability, trade disruption, an energy crisis and skyrocketing inflation are rendering the UK an emerging market country? Why on earth would Scotland want to remain shackled to it?
Andrew Bowie
It is a bit rich for the SNP to talk about political instability and uncertainty given that its own policy is to rip Scotland out of the United Kingdom, doing more damage to Scottish businesses and the economic foundations of our United Kingdom. The global economic situation in which we find ourselves is putting huge pressure on British businesses, but the Government, and especially the Department, are doing everything that we can to support British businesses to export to new markets and the European Union at this time.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) listed the litany of issues with the Government’s approach to trade deals. I mentioned Saxo bank’s assessment of the UK as an “emerging market country”, and with a US trade official describing UK trade policy as a disaster, why does the Secretary of State think the standing of the UK has fallen so far in the eyes of the world?
Andrew Bowie
It is simply untrue that the standing of the UK has fallen anywhere close to where the hon. Gentleman says it has. We are committed to doing trade deals; in fact, this Government have done a record amount of them and are continuing to negotiate, not least on the CPTPP and with others to increase British trade around the world. It would be great if he would come on board and start talking Britain up, instead of talking it down.
Covid-19: Contracts and Public Inquiry
Debate between Andrew Bowie and Gavin Newlands(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Gavin Newlands
With apologies, I will not, just because of time.
Some £108 million was given to a company with net assets of £18,000, another £108 million was given to a company small enough to be exempt from publishing full accounts, and £252 million was given to a company advised by an individual who was also an adviser to the UK Board of Trade. There is no allegation that those companies have done anything wrong themselves. Many would say that their job is to make money—and that they certainly did. But the Government’s job was not to enrich obscure micro-companies with nine-figure sums, but to equip our public services with the equipment to do their job safely and to ensure value for money in the process.
In each of the cases, the Government have fought tooth and nail to hide behind secrecy and use the pandemic as an excuse for ignoring the norms of transparency and accountability that are there for a very good reason. That abandonment of transparency was then used by the Minister for the Cabinet Office to commission polling into attitudes to the UK Union at a cost of more than half a million pounds.
Like most people dealing with the effects of the pandemic, I struggle to see why polling aimed entirely at promoting the Government’s political agenda can in any way be classed as emergency procurement. It is shabby, disreputable and a complete misuse of what should be a carefully used and monitored short-circuiting of normal procurement rules.
It is also just a little ironic that the Conservative party, which almost hourly accuses the SNP and others of being obsessed with the constitution, demonstrates its own myopic obsession with the Union by using the cover of a national and international health emergency to do so.
No one is suggesting that routes should not be available for the Government in times of real crisis to act swiftly and decisively outside what the norms are during relative periods of calm. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, and we were and are still living in extraordinary times. But the evidence that has emerged—forced, bit by bit, out of the Government, against their will at every step of the way—shows how the measures have been abused by a cabal who appear no longer to care about probity and transparency, but instead to have been caught in the act of shifting millions out of the back door when no one was looking.
The Prime Minister has promised a “full, proper public inquiry” into the covid pandemic, which of course I welcome. But as others have said, there is no need to wait. That inquiry must also include a full and open examination of the Government’s procurement policies, with every one of these deals open to public scrutiny. Those who have attempted throughout the past 16 months to hide their dealings from Parliament and from the public must be called to account for their actions and asked to explain why.
There is a way for Scots to be rid of these spivs, speculators—
Gavin Newlands
If the hon. Gentleman wants to intervene, he is more than welcome—if he is very brief.
Andrew Bowie
I might finish the hon. Gentleman’s speech for him because I am quite sure that I know what his next line will be. I will let him continue to finish his speech.
Gavin Newlands
I am very grateful for that intervention; that was very useful. But the hon. Gentleman’s groans were indeed correct: I am going to talk about our way out of this, which is through independence. No number of attempts from the hon. Gentleman or the Front Benchers in front of him to muddy the waters by briefing on changing the voting franchise will stop it from coming. At the end of the day, the UK Government’s actions such as those we are debating today, when combined with Brexit, make Scottish independence absolutely inevitable. In their dying days, and as we witness what counts as a Government in this place, the time cannot come quickly enough.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andrew Bowie and Gavin Newlands(4 years ago)
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Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr Alister Jack)
I have regular conversations with the Scottish Government on preparedness for the end of the transition period, including meetings of the EU Exit Operations Cabinet Committee and the Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations.