Global Britain

John Lamont Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

I would like to focus my brief remarks on the economic opportunities that await a global trading Britain in the years ahead. Once the world has overcome the enormous challenge of covid-19, which we surely will, I believe that the 2020s can be a decade of expansion that will improve the lives of all our constituents. That is the defining purpose of any economic policy: to improve the lives of the people we represent, to increase the number of good jobs in every community and to give economic security to families. Rightly, the UK Government have put the fire power of the world’s fifth largest economy at the service of individuals and businesses affected by covid, and that in turn has hit our public finances. The only way to bounce back from covid, to save jobs and to fix our public finances is to trade our way to an export-led recovery. That must be our objective.

We all have examples of great local firms that can take on the world and help to enhance global Britain. In my own Scottish Borders constituency, we have a proud heritage of textile manufacture, and the products produced by Borders textile mills such as Hawico in Hawick and Lochcarron in Selkirk are, without exaggeration, the best of their kind in the world. These global success stories are testament to a skilled local workforce expanding the global markets for those firms that have a direct impact in the small rural border towns that I represent, and creating more skilled jobs, more opportunities for young people and more reasons to stay and build a life in the area.

Businesses in the Borders are ready to take on the world, and there are three things I would ask the Government to do to help them. The first is to make the most of the greater freedom and flexibility that an independent trade policy gives us. Instead of the one-size-fits-all trade deals designed for 28 highly diverse nations with very different climates and landscapes, we can now to tailor our trade relationships more closely to our needs. It is extraordinary that the SNP opposed the recent EU trade deal, effectively voting for a no-deal Brexit that would have created uncertainty and disruption for Scottish businesses.

My second request is that we do more to encourage businesses that have not yet exported their goods to seize the opportunity to expand their market. My third request to my colleagues in Government is to remember that their responsibilities are for the whole of the United Kingdom. I know that Ministers are well seized of that point. Scottish businesses are served best when their two Governments, UK and Scottish, are working together.

As we emerge from the shadow of covid, there will be no time to lose in the race to rebuild our economy and to make a success of the 2020s. There is a world of opportunity out there. It is time to put past divisions aside and all pull together as one United Kingdom to make a success of global Britain for the benefit of all our constituents.