SMEs (Middle East and North Africa)

Andrew Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I agree with my hon. Friend on that point, and I very much hope that he will engage—as I do—with the Minister in bringing directly to him, and also to Mr Nick Baird, examples of how UKTI can get involved with his constituency in Wales.

We must always be evaluating the structure of UKTI, its reporting processes and its accountability to Parliament. We must never forget that the organisation receives more than £400 million of British taxpayers’ money every year. We must also, and I will not flinch from this, be assessing, as with any other organisation, the calibre of its staff, in the United Kingdom and overseas. We must consider whether UKTI should remain in its current form, become a stand-alone entity along the lines of the Technology Strategy Board, or be brought, rather than being between the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, into a new external relations department of the Foreign Office, UKTI and the Department for International Development, focusing on our foreign relations interactions.

What there must be, however, is greater scrutiny of UKTI in the House of Commons. Since the general election, this is only the third debate—two of them initiated by me—that Parliament has had on UKTI and British exports, and I certainly will not be able to say everything I wish to say in 15 minutes. I am pleased that there is a Labour Member—the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith)—here today. In the previous debate there were none, so I welcome the fact that a Labour MP is taking an interest. I do not know what mechanism could be used for that greater scrutiny. I do not know if an independent Select Committee just evaluating UKTI would be feasible, but we must always challenge UKTI and its Ministers and raise concerns when things do not go right.

I shall now turn to the subject of the debate—north Africa. I feel passionately about French-speaking north Africa because of its proximity to the United Kingdom and its importance strategically, for security reasons, and from an economic perspective. When I went to Mauritania two years ago, I was the first British MP to do so since 1960, when the current Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell), went there for its independence day celebrations. Regrettably, most MPs I talk to do not even know where Mauritania is, yet it is an important and rapidly growing country. It is close to Morocco, and is part of the Arab League and of north Africa. There are huge opportunities in its oil and gas sector, as well as in mining, education and construction, yet on the UKTI website no opportunities whatever are listed for the country.

I know that we have representation in Mauritania. Following my report about the country, the Foreign Secretary visited Mauritania, and we have now established a diplomatic presence on the ground in Nouakchott. As UKTI has a website for SMEs to look at and interact with, to find out what opportunities there are in a country, it is rather daunting to look up Mauritania and find nothing there. We must ensure that if we have a website it is properly populated.

Last week I took Nick Baird to have lunch with the Moroccan ambassador, Princess Lalla Joumala, and we talked about the importance of partnering with and working constructively with Morocco in joint venture operations. Morocco has tremendous relations from a banking, cultural and linguistic perspective with the other countries in the region—not just in north Africa—including Senegal, Mali and Niger. The Moroccans are keen to engage with us, so I was pleased that Mr Baird came with me to that lunch. I hope that there will be an increased focus on the Moroccans and on partnering with them to work constructively on penetrating the French-speaking north African market.

Luckily I speak French, because I studied it at university, but we are too guilty in this country of going only to places where English is spoken. If the first national language of a country is not English, we tend to gravitate away from it, and we cannot afford to do that any longer. All of the north African French-speaking countries are very keen to interact with the United Kingdom.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate and on his work on the report, which I look forward to reading when it is produced. I share his enthusiasm for the effort that must go into backing up and making a success of exports by our SMEs. Does he agree that everything he says about French should also apply to Arabic, a language to which more attention needs to be given in our country?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I absolutely agree, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. A recent media report expressed concern at the number of British diplomats operating in Arab countries who do not speak fluent Arabic. If we are to send such people overseas, they must speak either fluent Arabic or fluent French.

I have been to Tunisia, where 60 British companies operate compared with 1,700 French ones, which I emphasise because it is a staggering difference. Interestingly, by far the biggest investor there is British Gas. I want to ask the Minister what we are doing in conjunction with British Gas to ensure that its network of contacts, particularly in the petrochemical industry, is harnessed so that more of our companies are encouraged to operate in Tunisia.