Commonwealth in 2020

Debate between Ian Liddell-Grainger and James Duddridge

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (James Duddridge)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Commonwealth in 2020.

May I wish you a happy Commonwealth Day, Madam Deputy Speaker? It is a great honour to have been reappointed as the Minister for Africa for the UK Government, this time working across Foreign Office, international development and Commonwealth issues.

Since I began working for Barclays in Swaziland—now Eswatini—in the 1990s, Africa has been a huge influence on my life, both personal and professional, inside and outside this place. The same is very much true of the Commonwealth. I have had the privilege of working, living or travelling in 18 of the 19 Commonwealth countries in Africa. I exported my only brother to the Commonwealth: he went to Australia. I met my wife in Eswatini and we travelled on our honeymoon anticlockwise around the outside of Zimbabwe. It was a Commonwealth member at the time we met, and I hope that it will rejoin us. I previously served in the Foreign Office covering the Caribbean, and until recently I was chair of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the reins of which I assumed from and return to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger).

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his comments, and also for the work he did as chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association over that period. I should also like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans), who is now a Deputy Speaker. May I ask the Minister to dwell, at some time in his speech, on the success of the scholars that we bring here from all around the world? I know that he has chaired many conferences. Will he also mention what we do for the young people of the Commonwealth that we bring from all over the world to learn and to exchange best practice with us?

[James Duddridge]

I thank my hon. Friend. The conferences that the CPA runs are superb, and I thank him, the executive committee and Jon Davies, who works tirelessly on behalf of the Commonwealth and colleagues. I was well rewarded for my role as chair of CPA UK, as it gave me this rather nice tie as a leaving gift. [Interruption.] I think the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) disapproves of my tie, but he too wears racy ties on occasion—I am glad to see him sporting a slightly more conservative one today.

I was a member of the parliamentary delegation for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in 2018. Now that I have a role in Government, I am looking forward to delivering some of the commitments made in 2018. I trust that the House understands why it is such a pleasure for me to mark Commonwealth Day on behalf of the Government.