Commonwealth Day 2021

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) for her speech. I also pay tribute to the chairman of the UK branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger). He has done a brilliant job, with the entire team, to unite the UK in terms of our relationship with the Commonwealth. It is of course right to pay tribute to the leader of the Commonwealth, Her Majesty the Queen, and the entire royal family, who do so much good work, across the world, bringing together our disparate nations.

The Prime Minister will set out Britain’s relationships across the world in the integrated review. It is right that we will return to many of our historical links, which we unfortunately turned our back on, in many ways, when we joined the European Union. I am struck by the fact that on visits to Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the feeling was generally that the United Kingdom had turned its back on its historical ties. It is vital that we reunite and redevelop those ties.

I want to concentrate on the Indian subcontinent. I have the privilege of representing a constituency with people from every country on the planet and every faith on earth. We have a heavy concentration of people whose families originate from the Indian subcontinent. Later this week we shall debate human rights in Sri Lanka. There is no doubt that in 2016 CHOGM helped in trying to isolate and highlight the problems in Sri Lanka after the bloody civil war. I shall not dwell on that longer.

On 26 March we shall celebrate the 50th anniversary of the creation of Bangladesh as an independent state. It is a cause for celebration. The United Kingdom was instrumental in assisting Bangladesh to become independent and develop as a nation thereafter, and our strong links must remain. I have had the opportunity, with others, to visit Bangladesh to participate in social action projects to help to improve the life of ordinary Bangladeshi citizens. Parliamentarians are right to do that.

Our relationship with India goes back more than 300 years and it is fascinating that even now India is the third biggest investor in the United Kingdom. We used to be the third biggest investor in India, but I am afraid we have slipped down the leader board. There is much to recover. I look forward to the fact that in addition to visits by the Foreign Secretary and the International Trade Secretary the Prime Minister will, probably in April, visit India to set out our new relationship as we go forward in the world. It will incorporate international trade—and of course we have done new deals around the world—combined with security, defence and other aspects of our relationship. That will enable and entitle citizens from India and across the Commonwealth to come here and study, and our citizens to study in India and other countries around the world. It is vital to allow and encourage young people to build up friendships and relationships across the world, so that we and other countries will be friendly and well disposed towards each other.

That is part and parcel of the work that we have to undertake in the Commonwealth. It is an institution with no parallel anywhere in the history of the world. We are now in reality equal partners—different countries coming together because we have a shared past, but also a shared future.

As we pay tribute to the Commonwealth, let us unite in ensuring that we do so by encouraging diversity, and encouraging different people from different backgrounds to celebrate the fact that we are one Commonwealth. When we look at sport, recreation, education and trade, we realise that this is an unparalleled opportunity, and we must grasp it for the good of not only our citizens, but the citizens of the world.