Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Seely Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

No, I will not. There is plenty to do in relation to this without me setting out any red lines that may or may not be extant.

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

9. What progress his Department has made on the global Britain agenda.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)]

Global Britain is about being open, outward-looking and engaged with the world so as to maximise our influence, and I give the House the clearest recent example of that: the 28 countries that joined us in sympathetically expelling 153 Russian spies.

[Mr Seely]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is the perfect opportunity for us to fundamentally rethink our foreign policy post-Brexit, and that more work could be done on the idea of global Britain to ensure that we have a foreign policy fit for the 21st century?

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is why we have responded to the challenges that the world presents us with today by increasing our diplomatic staff by another 250 diplomats, in addition to the 100 that we added to our European strength, and we are opening 10 new sovereign posts in the Caribbean and the Pacific, with more to come in Africa.