UK Trade & Investment

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Richard Graham

Thursday 12th September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham]

I agree on the advertising and marketing point, but in the case of Land Rover there have been more significant changes, not least in the speed, efficiency and quality of product that Jaguar Land Rover provides. It is a remarkable success story, as he would agree. I totally accept what he said about its presence in east Africa, which is a happy land in my experience.

To return to my point on the SME debate, in some ways it has not changed since I wrote that paper all those years ago. The debate focuses on what Government should do to best help SMEs export. For example, should they subsidise many trips abroad for SMEs so that they can get to know the countries to which they might export? Do the SMEs have the resources or the sales structure to be able to follow through, or are the trips an interesting but non-productive form of business tourism? Should we help only the larger companies, and through them indirectly boost SME exporters through the supply chains of those large companies?

Should we use Government offices for all export help, or can chambers of commerce be better partners for certain SME goals? In some cases, chambers of commerce can be more selective than Government can. If someone needs a lawyer in Jakarta and rings up the British embassy, the embassy will be obliged to provide a list of every lawyer in town. What that person is really looking for is just one reputable company that can do the business. Government cannot choose a lawyer for someone, but a chamber of commerce might say, “Other companies like yours have effectively used X, Y and Z.” There are situations in which a chamber of commerce can be a more effective partner for SMEs.

What about where the Government should focus? Do we think that the work on strategic goals, such as EU trade agreements made successfully with, for example, Korea will add most value, or do we need an unremitting focus through UKTI on high value added opportunities in selected sectors, such as energy and resources, on which my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden is focusing successfully in the “-stans”? I am focusing more on infrastructure and aerospace in Indonesia. Do we perhaps need something like an army—I apologise to the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for using this metaphor—with a selection of weapons from which we choose the most appropriate for the opportunity and the market?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Gentleman should use the word “tools” instead.

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: “tools” is a better word. Do we need a selection of tools? We need a flexible approach that can draw on the most appropriate tool in the right marketplace for the right opportunity, with an organisation led, as UKTI now is, by people with direct experience of leading businesses in their own right. I pay tribute to UKTI for recruiting an old friend of mine, Crispin Simon. He is now leading on SMEs and has led at least one FTSE 350 company in the recent past.

I agree with the Minister, Lord Green, that there is much to be said for a greater role for the chambers of commerce. That is happening and is to be welcomed. We must accept that during the process the quality of service will not necessarily always be even across the world. It will vary from country to country and from chamber of commerce to chamber of commerce.

I will make a small handful of points. First, it is important that UKTI’s GREAT campaign is publicised as widely as possibly to all Members of Parliament. It is a major marketing campaign. It is visually attractive, powerful and resonates in different countries. I launched it in Indonesia. I hope that the Minister will confirm that the regional offices of UKTI have invited every MPs to the GREAT launch in their area. I am delighted to help the launch in Gloucestershire next Tuesday. All MPs can and should play a role in encouraging their SMEs to export by joining the GREAT campaign.

Secondly, UKTI is already doing very good work. My hon. Friend the Member for Wealden rightly paid tribute to that work, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham, on the back of his powerful paper, which he spent much time and effort producing. I am grateful to him for doing that. They are both right, because some remarkable things are going on.

Returning to the west Kowloon example I gave earlier, it is most recent in my mind from breakfast this morning that two small companies that I had never heard of before—Keepthinking and North, which are both based in Clerkenwell, in the east of this city—have won significant contracts with that project. That is a good example of how companies that may not be known to me or other hon. Members here today are winning contracts abroad with the help of UKTI. That is important, because we already know about certain familiar exports, such as the wings, engines, landing gear and coatings and so on that make up 38% of every Airbus and are made in Britain. It is important to remember that those parts are made in Britain, because the export value is always credited to France, but it is equally important that we understand that unknown companies in new sectors have real opportunities overseas.

There is an opportunity, which I hope the Minister will agree to take up, for UKTI to hold a seminar, possibly in Parliament—we know that it is difficult to move MPs out of our comfort zone, and we are required by the Whips to attend debates and vote and so on—to update MPs on some of the opportunities in new sectors and some of the new companies across the country in sectors such as creative media, medical science, nano-science and education.

I have been promoting two things in Indonesia with a degree of success. I hope that there is more to come. The first is a fantastic computer software tabling programme for universities. There are more than 100 universities in Indonesia. The software was created by a Cambridge-based company, is high-quality and could be exported to other parts of the world. The second is a quality assurance agency, which is highly rated internationally. It is based in my constituency and is doing work in many countries across the world, but it could work in others as well. Let UKTI educate MPs, who then could not possibly complain to the Minister that they did not know what UKTI was doing or what new opportunities there were.

Thirdly, in countries in which we have both a UKTI and a Department for International Development presence, I believe we can do more to act as a united UK plc. The story of the first biodiesel plant in Indonesia, made by the wonderful Gloucestershire-based manufacturer Green Fuels—I am taking the Indonesian ambassador to Green Fuels next week—is a good example of a business contract by a private business that is totally in line with our DFID objectives for Indonesia. The contract should open further opportunities for the UK in a general sense, and I believe there are other such examples elsewhere in the world. A more united, working-together spirit by DFID and UKTI could lead to exciting results.

I finish on a note as positive as those of the Members who spoke earlier. The help given to me, as one of the Prime Minister’s trade envoys, by our embassy in Jakarta, which includes both UKTI and the British Council, has been powerful. We are all working together on strategic and tactical goals that will benefit both Indonesia and the UK, which is important. A win-win solution is much more attractive than simply trying to thrust a product at some hapless overseas country.

Prudential, for example, derives significant earnings from its Indonesian operations, and in return it provides insurance and pension solutions for many millions of Indonesians. Prudential employs no fewer than 190,000 people in that great archipelago. That is what UK companies can achieve for themselves, starting from nothing not very long ago. That is what companies can achieve for UK plc and for their host country, which shows the value of inward investment—exported investment from the UK. Such investment offers great opportunities for British SMEs to service, in this case, Prudential either in the UK or overseas, and from that base to expand and service other financial institutions. British service companies can be very successful.

Debates such as this are a great marketing opportunity for trade envoys, so it is appropriate for me to finish by saying that if Members here today, or those who read the debate later, have specialist companies in their constituencies that believe they have something to offer Indonesia, they are of course absolutely welcome to contact me. I will do my best, with UKTI, to try to help those SMEs export a little bit more.