Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

1. What steps her Department is taking to help increase the ease of doing business throughout the developing world.

[Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con)]

6. What steps her Department is taking to help increase the ease of doing business throughout the developing world.

[The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)]

The UK Government work in 35 low and middle-income countries to implement legal, regulatory and policy reforms to make it easy for business, including from the UK, to operate. Business-enabling environment reform was also discussed at the UK-Africa investment summit, which secured commercial deals between UK companies and African partners worth more than £6.5 billion.

[Gareth Bacon]

Does the Minister agree that now we have formally left the European Union we have an exciting opportunity to build on our historic ties with the Commonwealth and use close business links to help developing countries create wealth?

[Nigel Adams]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. He makes a good point. The Government are committed to working with our Commonwealth partners to support and deepen intra-Commonwealth trade, to improve the business environments in Commonwealth countries to enable them to be more globally competitive, and to facilitate the economic empowerment of women and young people by providing more business and educational opportunities. He will have an opportunity on Monday to take part in the Commonwealth debate.