Oral Answers to Questions

Duncan Baker Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Graham Stuart)]

No one in this House has done more than my hon Friend to champion the English language sector under the pressures of covid. I congratulate her on today’s question and on the debate that she led in, I think, July, to which I had the honour of replying.

We are determined to champion the interests of the English language sector. That is why it is a key member of the education sector advisory group, which I co-chair with my hon. Friend the Minister for Universities. We are determined across Government to ensure that it can access Government schemes for support. My hon. Friend is also right to say that we should look ahead, and that is why we have produced an enterprise management incentive suppliers catalogue for China and are working to replicate that for growing markets such as Indonesia and Brazil. We have to help those businesses to survive today, and we have to put in place support for the future so that they can grow once again and be such an important part of our education sector and, indeed, our wider cultural offer to the world.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con) [V]]

We were told that, as an independent nation, we could not get a free trade deal with the European Union, but we did. We have also signed more than 60 additional trade deals with nations all around the world, and that is undoubtedly a magnificent achievement for the world’s fifth largest economy. Can my right hon. Friend tell me how these trade deals impact us and what their potential value is to the UK economy?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The trade deals that we have secured are worth £885 billion of trade. What trade means is jobs. It means opportunities for firms to export abroad. It means strong supply chains for businesses across the United Kingdom. The FTAs that we have secured mean that UK traders will continue to enjoy preferential access to trade that covers 63% of UK trade. In the case of our deal with Japan, that deal goes further and faster, and that will bring more benefits to our tech companies, to our food and drink industry and, of course, to our fantastic creative industry.