British Indian Ocean Territory: Sovereignty

Debate between Jim Shannon and Daniel Kawczynski

Wednesday 7th December 2022 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for the assurances that she has given, and for agreeing to write to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), on some of the points that he raised.

I heard the Minister say that there will be extensive consultation with the Chagossians, but I still have not heard from her lips that there will be an internationally recognised referendum. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (Sir James Duddridge) rightly asked questions about how it would come about—the matrix, framework, dynamics and legality of it. I could not agree with him more. There have been referenda in other parts of the world under difficult circumstances and people were able to cast a vote.

I should let my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) know that I hope to meet Mr Bontemps next week. Mr Bontemps told me in no uncertain terms that, wherever the Chagossians are—Mauritius, Seychelles, Britain or anywhere else—they are up for remaining British. As part of the British family, our duty and responsibility first and foremost—trumping even international court decisions—is to those Chagossians.

[Jim Shannon]

On a point of order, Mrs Cummins. I have spoken to the Doorkeepers about this room. It is so cold you could hang dead people in here and they would not go off. The Doorkeepers have asked the staff to do something with the heating. They say the heat is turned on. I am not sure where it is, but it is not on here. Can I ask, Mrs Cummins, that you use your power as Chair to do something about that?

Nord Stream 2 Pipeline

Debate between Jim Shannon and Daniel Kawczynski

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I will just make a couple of extra points, and then I will give way.

Following President Trump, we now have President Biden, who has appointed as his deputy Secretary of State —one of the most powerful positions in Washington—a lady called Wendy Sherman. In the Senate nomination hearings, when she was being assessed by the other Senators, she said that the Biden Administration would do

“whatever is lawful to stop the pipeline”.

The Americans are our closest security and military partners, and as a fellow permanent member of the UN Security Council, if they are prepared to take the lead on our continent on this hugely strategically important issue, we must join them. I have written to Senator Ted Cruz from Texas this week, who is the leading proponent in the American Senate of stopping this project. He and 40 other Republican Senators have written to the President, calling for the Americans to implement sanctions against any company and any individual involved in this project. The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate, Bob Menendez, a Democrat, has also spoken against this project.

I just want to say one thing before I take interventions. As an independent sovereign nation with an ability to influence our continent now in an unprecedented way, unfettered by the communal constraints of the European Union, if we now join the Americans as two permanent members of the UN Security Council, I think we could possibly stop this project. So many companies involved in the construction of this pipeline, whether Swiss companies or others, are so frightened of the prospect of sanctions against them that they are likely to pull out of the project, and this project will be stopped. Britain is at the forefront in this see-saw between Germany and Russia, and many of our NATO partners in central and eastern Europe and the Americans. It will be Britain that ultimately decides which side of this extraordinary debate wins out and guarantees the security of our NATO partners.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having brought this issue forward: this is the place for these decisions to be debated. The foreign policy issues surrounding Nord Stream are deep and complex, as he has referred to. I fully agree that we must be wary of reliance on unreliable states. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the recent reports of state-sponsored attacks on protesters in Russia are a sobering reminder, if one is needed, that there is more of a cost to be paid from being in thrall to Russia than money?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman, and will talk about some of the extraordinary behaviour of Russia in its own neighbourhood and domestically within its own jurisdiction, and how it is undermining and subverting democracy in its own country.

When I was on the Foreign Affairs Committee I called for dialogue with the Russians. I still stand by that. I think we have to talk to these people, but we have to do so from a position of strength. Giving them this umbilical cord to the heart of Europe undermines that negotiating position. One thing we know about the Russians was taught to us by Reagan and Thatcher—Thatcher invited Gorbachev to Chequers in December 1984, the first western leader to invite him for discussions. They taught us that we can only negotiate with those people from a position of strength. Divided among us, they will eat us for breakfast.

Adult Social Care in Shropshire: Government Funding

Debate between Jim Shannon and Daniel Kawczynski

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for that intervention. I could not agree more.

When we came into office, we of course had to rein in expenditure, and all Government Departments had to have cuts. The cuts to local government have, of course, adversely affected our council. I am pleased that the country’s annual deficit is now below £28 billion a year, down from the £152 billion a year that we inherited. However, now that we are getting the finances under control in a more sustainable way, I urge the Minister to take the message back to the Treasury that we need to increase public funding of our councils, so that they can start to meet the huge rise in demand for adult social care in our county. I will explain why Shropshire is uniquely affected.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Although it is absolutely the case that adult social care is very important in Shropshire, and in other parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, does not the hon. Member agree that we need to attract more workers into adult social care, because there seems to be a dearth of them, and help them to understand how rewarding it can be to make a real difference to the life of a vulnerable person? Also, does the hon. Member believe that we can do anything in this place to encourage more adult workers to be involved?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Yes, very much so, and I am sure that some of my colleagues from Shropshire will take up that point in interventions. However, I will make a few quick points before I take another intervention.

During the 2017 general election, we gave the impression to the electorate that somehow they would have to sell their homes in order to pay for their long-term care. I have to tell the Minister that I had never come across such levels of bewilderment, frustration and anger on the streets of Shrewsbury as I did following that announcement, and have not done so subsequently. Whoever came up with that policy for the then Conservative Government was really out of tune with the thinking of many of our natural voters.

Even my own beloved mother—this is the first time I have referenced her in 15 years—Halina, who is a staunch Conservative supporter, said to me, “I haven’t made sacrifices all of my life, I haven’t done the right thing, paid the right amount of tax and done all the right things, for you now to force me to sell my home to look after my long-term social care needs.” I think my mother exemplified the strength of feeling across the United Kingdom.

I am convinced that that policy lost us our majority at the 2017 general election; it was certainly a major contributory factor. I am therefore very pleased that the Prime Minister has indicated that in this Parliament a solution will be found. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin said, we need radical, innovative thinking that has the support of our voters.

Shropshire MPs meet the council on a regular basis. We Shropshire MPs work as a team and hunt as a pack, and one of our greatest strengths is the unity between us all. In fact, we are seeing our council this Friday, 24 January, which happens to be my 48th birthday. I am looking forward to a few bottles of beer from my colleagues during the meeting.

UK and Polish War Reparations

Debate between Jim Shannon and Daniel Kawczynski

Wednesday 20th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered UK and Polish war reparations from Germany.

Last year, I visited Warsaw to receive an award on behalf of my family for the brother of my grandfather Jan Kawczynski. He was acutely aware that in Poland there was the death penalty for hiding Jewish friends and neighbours. Nevertheless, he took the risk and hid many of his Jewish friends and neighbours on his estate. As a result of doing that, the Germans killed him and his entire family. When he returned to his estate, the Germans instructed him to take off his officer’s boots. They made him watch as they shot his 12-year-old daughter in front of him. Then, they shot his wife. Jan Kawczynski was my age at the time he was shot by the Germans. His 12-year-old daughter who was shot in front of him was almost the same age as my daughter Alexis.

It was a very moving moment for me and the Kawczynskis to pick up this award for him and his family. It brought back to me the emotional issue of just how much Poland suffered during the second world war at the hands of the German invaders. The attitude of the Germans to war reparations can be summed up very eloquently in three Polish words that were sent to me by my friends in the Polish Parliament: przemilczenie, przedawnienie and zapomnienie. That basically means that they want to silence the debate. They want to show that the debate is outdated and from a bygone era that is no longer relevant to today. They want to forget it.

There has been no resolution to this issue; no formal treaty has been signed between Germany and Poland since the second world war. Bearing in mind the huge loss of life, the buildings that were destroyed and the works of art that were stolen from Poland, this issue simply will not go away. I pay tribute to our friends in the Polish Parliament, in particular my friend Arkadiusz Mularczyk, who has been tasked by the Polish Government with compiling a major dossier to look at the practicality of Poland being able to take Germany to a tribunal to seek war reparations. Of course, the Minister will know that article 3 of the Hague convention of 1907, a copy of which I have before me, clearly states the responsibility of an aggressor nation such as Germany in ensuring that there is proper compensation for all aspects of an invasion of this kind.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this matter to the Chamber. If there are going to be any reparations, which quite clearly the hon. Gentleman requests and which I support, let us start with an apology to Polish people from Germany for its actions. Has that ever been done?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I did not quite hear everything the hon. Gentleman said.

[Jim Shannon]

Was there an apology from the Germany to the Polish people for its actions during the second world war? If there are to be any reparations, that starts with an apology from the German nation to the Polish nation.

Libya

Debate between Jim Shannon and Daniel Kawczynski

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

I am coming on to some of those things, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need the Government to be responsive and to help our people.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

The hon. Gentleman is referring to the legacy issues affecting many people in Northern Ireland. I join our colleagues in Northern Ireland in campaigning on such an important matter, and I am very disappointed that the Government have not made more progress. May I ask him to support action on the other key outstanding legacy issue, which is the murder of a serving British police officer, PC Yvonne Fletcher, who was shot outside the Libyan embassy? To this day, we have still had no indication of who her murderer was, and he has not been brought to justice.

[Jim Shannon]

It is good to be reminded of that case, which has never been resolved from an investigative point of view and for which no one has been held accountable. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We want that issue, as well as other outstanding legacy issues, to be addressed. It is such a major issue that I will not do my constituents the disservice of ignoring it and failing to take the opportunity to call for the wrong to be righted as far as possible, which is what the Government appear to have done. I hope that they will not continue to do so.

The IRA terrorist campaign led to the deaths of 3,750 people, not only in Northern Ireland but in Brighton, London, Manchester and other places. Libyan involvement is undisputed. Compensation has been paid to the families of Americans who lost their lives as a result of that involvement, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) referred to, but the loss of British lives has not led to similar aid or support. I have said before in this place that our citizens are not second-class citizens and that they deserve the same justice as the Americans, and I stress that essential point about British engagement on behalf of my constituents.

Chaos reigns in many parts of Libya. I am aware from the Library briefing that in August, the Royal Navy supported the removal of potential chemical weapons materials from Libya. There are a lot of issues to be addressed there. This is not about winning a war; it is about seeing how we can influence the country and help to rebuild it from a dictatorship into a democracy. However, many external factors are taking control, and we must decide what the appropriate action is in that scenario.

The United Nations has brokered the formation of an inclusive Government of National Accord, but as seems to be the norm, the people the UN seeks to support have no regard for its regulations. There is substantiated evidence of the GNA having been undermined by people flouting the United Nations arms embargo and using Libyan militias as proxies. I have some good friends who work in security in the middle east and have been in Libya, and they have informed me that Libya is awash with illegal arms, some of which have made their way to terrorist groups in Europe. If we want to address terrorism in Europe, we must address the availability of arms in Libya.

Libya has descended into lawlessness since the fall of Gaddafi in 2011, giving groups such as the self-proclaimed ISIS free rein to attack Christians. The Minister would expect me to make this point, because I take the opportunity to do so whenever one comes my way. We all know that Libya has a deep Islamic culture, so Libyan Christians must keep their faith completely secret. Churches for Libyans and Christian literature in Arabic are forbidden. Although migrant Christians are allowed to practise their faith in Libya, many have paid the ultimate price: in 2015, dozens of Christians from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Egypt were kidnapped or killed by extremists in Libya. Several of those cases have been well expounded upon and were in the papers and on TV at the time. For example, a brief search for links to news stories related to Christian persecution and Libya returns the following headlines: “Christian woman in fear for her life”; “IS kidnaps 86 Eritrean Christians”; “Islamic State capture more African migrants”; and “IS kill 30 Christians, destroy churches”. Those are just some of the things that happen. Continued persecution is an important factor that must be considered in any discussion of our role and involvement in Libya.

I am conscious of the time and your direction, Mr Chope, so I will conclude with this comment. We face a massive problem. We must first determine our role in solving it and working with others who seek to absolve themselves rather than help solve the issues. We must try to bring stability to an area that desperately needs it, for the benefit of Christians, citizens and neighbouring countries, simply for the fight against terrorism, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) referred to, for the ordinary people of Libya—the mothers, families, children and hard-working people. We must be wise and effective. Our actions must be co-ordinated to ensure that there is a global response that is felt by those who continue to seek to bring the country to its knees. We in this House have a duty, but we are not alone in that, and we must ensure that all the key players have a role in bringing stability to Libya.

SMEs (Middle East and North Africa)

Debate between Jim Shannon and Daniel Kawczynski

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen.

The United Kingdom is the sixth largest economy in the world, yet we are, I believe, only the 12th largest exporter. Many colleagues will know about my passion for British exports. Having come from an exports background, I take a strong interest not only in exports but in the region we are discussing, namely the middle east and north Africa.

I have spent the past eight months undertaking a report into UK Trade & Investment—UKTI—and into how it interacts with small and medium-sized British companies in assisting them to export to the middle east and north Africa. Of great interest to me is that we have interacted with more than 220 such companies, which have come from all over the United Kingdom into the House of Commons to give evidence in a very positive and enthusiastic way, about their experiences of UKTI. Small and medium-sized enterprises—SMEs—are keen to improve the service they get from UKTI, and I pay tribute to all their work in helping me to write my report, which will be published in seven to 10 days’ time. I will give a copy of the report to the Minister, for his consideration.

I would like to put on record my thanks to Mr Nick Baird, UKTI’s chief executive, who has been extraordinarily patient with me over the past eight months. I sometimes think he must stick pins into a voodoo doll of me in his office, because of the number of issues that I constantly raise with him. Extraordinarily, I have had to take a lot of the companies that I have interviewed to meet with him directly—and he will testify to that—because they simply have not had the traction that they expect and deserve from interacting with UKTI on the ground in their various regions. I am delighted to help them by taking them to meet Mr Baird, but that should not be for a Member of Parliament to do; they should automatically get the traction and support on the ground that they so rightly deserve.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman shows genuine zeal, and I congratulate him on his great interest in and passion for the issue. The agri-food industry in Northern Ireland is worth some £4 billion to the economy. Most of that comes from sales in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom, and just some of it from sales overseas. Does he feel that the time has come for a UK-wide promotion of all the regions together, for the agri-food industry to market itself and get those markets in the middle east and north Africa? There is clearly the potential there to do even more for the economies back home.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I very much concur with the hon. Gentleman. He will know that British agricultural products are among the best in the world. The British brand is extremely strong in the middle east and north Africa—they are crying out for dairy, beef and other products—and there should be a concerted approach, promoting the best of British of agricultural products in the region.

UK Trade & Investment

Debate between Jim Shannon and Daniel Kawczynski

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

There is nothing more important than exports. The House constantly debates and argues over how to slice the cake—there are huge areas of difference between Opposition and Government Members—to provide for all the public services that we want to support, yet exports are about increasing revenue as a whole for the country and making that cake bigger. I am extremely disappointed that no Labour Back Benchers are present for the debate, but that is typical of debates on exports. They also table few written questions on this critical subject, so they clearly are not interested in engaging with it. I hope that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), will take a message to his parliamentary party about the importance of engaging in such debates so that we can work constructively together, across parties, on this critical issue.

My office and I have spent the previous few months interviewing people from hundreds of SMEs from all over the UK, who have come to the House of Commons to give us their experiences—good and bad—of UKTI. We presented our preliminary results at a meeting with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I have repeatedly lobbied the Chancellor on the issue, and I very much hope that some movement, or some additional support for UKTI, will be spoken about on Wednesday.

During my interviews, I have got to know Mr Nick Baird, the chief executive of UKTI, who I think is doing a very good job, and I want to put on record my thanks to him for his professional leadership of the organisation. I am, however, disappointed that a number of companies that I have met have failed to get the support that they require from UKTI, so I have started to take them to Mr Baird to allow him to engage directly with them and provide support. Some of the companies are talking about hundreds of millions of pounds of investment into the United Kingdom, so that is very important.

I shall mention briefly, as I have to be very brief, three key recommendations that I would like the Minister to take on board, with which, by the way, Mr Baird agrees. The first is about the structure of UKTI. At the moment, personnel report into different Departments, including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and sometimes to local ambassadors. What we want in the United Kingdom is one organisation that is fit for purpose, with reporting taking place directly to UKTI’s board and its chief executive. We want an organisation that can hire, fire and reward on the grounds of performance and on a commercial basis. We want to encourage people in UKTI to go the extra mile and strive to do everything possible to help British businesses to export. Regrettably, the support is rather patchy; in some parts of the world it is superb, but in others it is poor. We therefore want a common theme across the world and a common reporting structure.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

No, I will not. I am sorry, but I do not have time.

My second point is about funding. Only 0.005% of Government spend goes to UKTI, and I am concerned that we will fall behind Scottish Development International, for example. That body receives far more pro rata, given the number of companies in Scotland, so it is able better to support its companies.

There is only a 49% awareness of UKTI among SMEs, and it is important that the body gets more funding from the Chancellor so that the message about what it can do for those companies throughout the world is better understood. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) made the superb point that for every £1 spent, UKTI generates £22 of revenue. If I was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, my No. 1 priority would be to give UKTI more money.

My third point is that we need greater parliamentary scrutiny of UKTI. I am having to condense a 25-minute speech into five minutes, and this is only the second debate that has been held on UKTI in the past 12 months. This is a ridiculous way of scrutinising one of our country’s most important bodies. I want ongoing parliamentary scrutiny, and even—dare I say it—a Select Committee that can interact with Ministers and the UKTI chief executive on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis, and hold them to account about specific countries and projects so that we are always scrutinising how taxpayers’ money is spent. When that parliamentary scrutiny takes place, we will be able to say to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, “Look at what UKTI is doing. Look how things are improving. Give it more money,” and I cannot overemphasise the importance of that. I desperately want to work with colleagues to convince the Chancellor and the Prime Minister to give us a Select Committee of the House of Commons to allow those of us who are passionate about exports to work together constructively to hold UKTI to account.

Some 45 UKTI staff work in Brazil, but 52 opportunities are listed on the website. The website is not properly maintained, and no opportunities are listed for a huge number of countries. We might not be surprised that that is the case for some obscure, small countries, such as Cape Verde and Mauritania, but there are many larger countries that have no opportunities listed against them. If we are going to have a website and to communicate with SMEs up and down the country, we need always to be harvesting opportunities across the world and putting them on that site. We must ensure that information is disseminated daily to all nine regions in England, and that those regions then interact with their SMEs to find out which can best be tailored to each opportunity.

Whenever I have travelled abroad, I have noted that the most important thing to remember, as my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North mentioned, is branding. The British brand is the gold standard. It is the best in the world, so many people across the middle east, and in the rest of the world, yearn to buy British. Give us an opportunity here in the Commons to scrutinise UKTI on an ongoing basis, and give us a Select Committee.

UK Trade and Investment

Debate between Jim Shannon and Daniel Kawczynski

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I am very pleased for my hon. Friend and wish the company every success in exporting tea to China.

UKTI should appreciate these debates. I am proud of its achievements, but of course we should always scrutinise it to see if it can do more. This country became one of the greatest countries in the world through its ability to trade. We are not exporting as much as I would like, which is why it is so important to have these debates, and I am pleased that my hon. Friend has had a positive experience.

I do not want salaries to be just mediocre or okay for UKTI staff—many do a very good job. I want them to be the best, because I want UKTI to recruit the best. I want them to have greater incentives and bonuses to push for trade. My understanding—the Minister may correct me if I am wrong—is that UKTI staff are monitored as a whole, rather than as individuals. It is extremely important that we start to monitor individual performance. When I was in exports, if I did not hit my one-month target there would be problems; if I did not hit the two-month target, there would be serious problems; if I did not hit the three-month target, I would be out of a job. We have that pressure in the private sector, and it focuses the mind on delivering what is expected. I hope we can bring that private sector focus to UKTI.

I mentioned co-ordination across the country. I am the chair of two all-party groups: for Saudi Arabia and for Libya. Not once have I ever been contacted, in seven years, by anybody in UKTI about all of my delegations to Saudi Arabia and Libya—not on a proactive basis anyway. We, as parliamentarians, do an important job when we go to such countries. We meet important officials and leaders, so it is important for UKTI to understand all-party groups. Some are very active and UKTI should be engaging with us to find out what we are doing and try to have a common approach.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman see that it is the export not just of UK products, but of skills that help to increase business in Libya and the other countries in the middle east to which he has referred?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I spent the afternoon with His Excellency Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the former Libyan Prime Minister, who, with his counterparts, bravely brought about the revolution. He said the very same thing to me: that they are desperate for British skills, not just exported goods. They desperately need our experts in the fields of banking, commerce, education and health care. I agree with the hon. Gentleman.

The Prime Minister has started to appoint trade ambassadors and I have not heard from any of them so far, apart from my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who I think has been appointed to look after Indonesia. He is not in the Chamber at the moment, but I pay tribute to how he has been trying to engage with parliamentarians in a proactive way, and explaining what he is doing with companies from across the UK. He is helping them to enter Indonesia, and encouraging other hon. Members with companies that could benefit from participating. The Middle East Association and the Arab British Chamber of Commerce are also acutely involved in exports to the middle east. I hope that the Minister will give me an assurance that efforts will be redoubled to co-ordinate with all trade ambassadors, all-party parliamentary groups, the MEA and the ABCC to ensure that we have a co-ordinated approach as one country with one strategy, with all of us who are interested in exports consulted and utilised constantly to update our constituents on all the opportunities that exist.

I have come across instances where business has been lost in the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and other countries, when business men from those countries have wished to come to the United Kingdom to visit a particular project or institution—to see whether it is appropriate to build in their country or whether their company has the calibre to undertake such a project—and their visas have been rejected. As a result, the business has been lost, obviously to the great annoyance of the host country and the business people involved. There must be greater co-ordination between UKTI and the Home Office to ensure that visas are granted to the genuine business men from all over the middle east who are trying to come to the United Kingdom either for training courses or to look at projects and companies.

UKTI is good at high-value opportunities. As I have said, I recently had the privilege of meeting Paul Noon, the director of UKTI in the west midlands. I applaud the work that UKTI does and I am grateful to the Minister for all his efforts. In my view, there has been a radical shift over the last two and a half years. The Prime Minister has said that he wants our embassies to be shop windows for British businesses. To a degree, I can see a vast improvement in our embassies. A lot of that is a tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues who have ensured that all the people at our embassies, from the ambassadors downwards, are focused on supporting small and medium-sized companies to export overseas to the middle east and north Africa, but too many of these opportunities are the really big ones. We need a massively increased focus, drilling down in every MENA country to the smallest of opportunities, no matter how small. We also need the sharing of information between all British companies. We are very bad at exchanging information with one another in this country compared with our European Union counterparts.

This debate follows the last one, almost a year on. My colleague Mr Justin King and I are writing a report—it will go to every Member of Parliament, including the Prime Minister—about the real experiences of small and medium-sized companies and their feedback. I very much hope that the Minister will give me an assurance that he and his Department will take seriously that report and our passion for increasing British exports.

UK Relations: Libya

Debate between Jim Shannon and Daniel Kawczynski

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I thank the Minister for that. I recently had a meeting with a lieutenant-colonel who had served in Basra. He told me that when he met Mr Blair, he said, “Okay, we brought peace to Basra, so where are all the suits?”. In other words, he wanted to know why Mr Blair had not brought in British companies to reconstruct Basra. Some of the huge problems that we have had in Iraq stem from the fact that we were too slow in bringing in British companies to reconstruct the country. However, we could not have just said, “Look, pack your bags and go to Iraq.” Many companies would have found that difficult, and we are now saying the same of Libya.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

In my constituency, there are a number of companies that are very keen to do business in the region. The trip that the Minister mentioned may have been an opportunity for them to do just that, but the incentive for British business to get involved is not fully pushed by Government. Does the hon. Gentleman feel that the Government should do more to encourage local companies, especially when so many are keen to do business?

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I have had meetings with leading industrialists, and with various Army officers who have served in Iraq and other parts of the world and who have experience of such matters. We have compiled a report, which we will send to the Prime Minister and the Minister, outlining some of the things that the Government have to put in place to ensure that there is confidence, and encouragement for British companies to go out there. The French are brilliant at that; they have a body called COFACE, which I visited in Paris many years ago. It is a nationwide organisation that insures, underpins and takes some of the risk out of French companies going abroad and investing in such projects. The Government should start up a similar insurance fund. We will put in £50 million, the Libyans will put in £50 million, and we will get another few hundred million from wealthy Arab countries. We will then pool the money, and it will act as an insurance policy for British companies that are reconstructing Libya.

I will send the report to the Minister, as well as to the Prime Minister, because we must get a grip on the issue. I could tell the Minister the names of hundreds of companies that I have met in the past six months that would like to work in Libya, but do not know how to go about it. They ask me about guarantees and about what kind of political support is in place.

Yesterday, I met the Labour peer, Baroness Symons, whom I respect greatly. She said that there had been good engagement with Libya previously. I hope that the Minister is aware that the Law Society has been in Libya to help with the rule of law and arbitration. The British Council has operated in Libya, advising on issues to do with women. Welsh universities have signed memorandums of understanding with the Libyan Education Minister to work and interact with Libyan universities. The Westminster Foundation for Democracy has been helping to develop democratic institutions and civil society. Crown Agents were also in the country, working on anti-corruption measures. Those wonderful institutions were already working in Libya under Gaddafi, and I pay tribute to the previous Labour Government for getting them into the country. However, I do not know how successful those institutions were under the brutal Gaddafi regime. Certainly, now that Libya is free, I hope that the Minister will do everything possible to help the Law Society, the British Council, Welsh universities, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, Crown Agents and others to get to Libya to underpin all that work and to help start reconstructing the country.

The European Union had negotiations with the Gaddafi regime on various trade agreements, and I hope that those are speeded up as well. Apparently, Dominic Asquith has been a representative of Her Majesty’s Government in Libya, and I am keen to know what his views are.

Libya has been a passion for me all my life. When I was growing up in Poland under the communist regime, we had nothing. The regime was brutal and tyrannical, and everything was rationed. My late uncle and his family worked in Libya, and they used to send oranges from Tripoli to Warsaw. Receiving those oranges at kindergarten was like a miraculous experience. Children in Warsaw in 1978 did not know what oranges were; we had never seen these things. We peeled the oranges delicately, we ate them, we made marmalade out of the peel, we drew them and we talked about them. They were incredible to us. Of course, most days now I peel an orange and I do not think about it, but as a child in 1978 I thought, “What sort of paradise must this be for them to have these sorts of things?”. My interest in Libya has stemmed from that early childhood experience.

I love the Libyan people and I love Libya. I am so passionate about the country, and I am so grateful that the brutal tyrant has been deposed. I look forward to the people of the UK having a very strong friendship with the people of Libya for the rest of my lifetime.