Oral Answers to Questions Debate
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Lord Cryer
Main Page: Lord Cryer (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Cryer's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Boris Johnson
One of the most extraordinary things that I discovered on becoming Foreign Secretary was the full extent of the network that the UK has around the world. We have more coverage overseas than the French with only 70% of their budget. My experience of UK diplomats and trade officials is that they are superlatively well informed about the needs of UK business and industry, and that they will assist us in doing first-class free trade deals in every capital.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Further to Questions 1 and 12, is not the British Government uniquely placed to bring Pakistan and India together in some form of talks, particularly given the fact that tensions are probably higher than they have ever been and that we are dealing with two nuclear powers?
Alok Sharma
As I noted earlier, we have regular dialogues with the Indian and Pakistani Governments. I reiterate that, at the end of the day, it is up to the two countries to come together and to work on the pace of bilateral relations.