UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rachel Reeves)]

Growth is the No. 1 mission of this Labour Government. To grow the economy, we need to help Great British businesses to export around the world, including to China, the second biggest economy in the world and our fourth-largest trading partner. Not engaging is simply not an option. That is why I led a delegation, including the Governor of the Bank of England, the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority and representatives of some of Britain’s largest financial service firms, including HSBC, Standard Chartered and Schroders, to the 2025 UK-China economic and financial dialogue—the first of its kind since 2019.

This dialogue has delivered a set of tangible benefits to ensure that British firms have greater access to the Chinese market, while safeguarding our national security—the first duty of any Government. In China, I met outstanding British companies, such as Brompton, Jaguar Land Rover and AstraZeneca, that will benefit from the steps that we have agreed. We have worked to lift market access barriers across a range of goods and services, particularly in the agrifood sector. On financial services, we have successfully secured new licences and quota allocations for UK firms to improve operating access in China. We agreed to co-operate further, including by renewing our shared commitment to the UK-China stock connect scheme, first launched in 2019, by deepening our co-operation on wealth management through a UK-China wealth connect scheme, and by progressing initiatives on pensions and sustainable finance, delivering significant benefits for UK firms and the City of London. I am pleased that China agreed to issue its first ever overseas sovereign green bond in London in 2025, underlining the UK’s position as a global capital for high-quality sustainable finance.

The UK is a global leader in financial services. There are significant opportunities to expand our presence in new markets, and the tangible outcomes we have delivered this week will help to deliver that. These steps are part of a wider programme to make substantive progress on improving arrangements for UK exporters and investors, as reflected in new agreements on vaccine approvals, fertiliser, whisky labelling, legal services, automotives and accountancy, which have set us on course for this dialogue to unlock £1 billion of value for the UK economy.

These outcomes, agreed with my counterpart Vice-Premier He Lifeng, represent pragmatic co-operation in action, and support secure and resilient economic growth, because security and economic growth go hand in hand. That means finding the right way to build a stable and balanced relationship with China that is in our national interest—one that recognises the importance of co-operation in addressing the global issues that we face, of competing where our interests differ, and of challenging robustly whenever that is required. In Beijing and Shanghai, I was clear that while we must co-operate on areas of mutual interest, we will confidently challenge on areas where we disagree. I expressed our country’s real economic and trade concerns to the Chinese, including about trade imbalances and economic security, and I raised concerns about Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine, human rights, and restrictions on rights and freedoms in Hong Kong, including the case of Jimmy Lai and the completely unjustified sanctions against British parliamentarians.

A key outcome of this dialogue is that we have secured China’s commitment to improving existing channels, so that we can openly discuss sensitive issues and the ways in which they impact our economy, because if we do not engage with China, we cannot raise our real concerns. This dialogue is just one part of our engagement with trading partners across the world. Since becoming Chancellor, I have been to New York, Washington, Toronto and Brussels to build our global economic relationships, while my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary has travelled to the Gulf to boost trade and investment, and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is engaging with partners all over the world to deliver growth that benefits people across the United Kingdom.

We must continue to go further, faster, in driving economic growth to make working people better off. That is why the Prime Minister launched our artificial intelligence opportunities action plan yesterday. It throws the full weight of Government behind AI in the UK to revolutionise our public services and make our economy more productive. It is why next week I will talk to business leaders, investors and entrepreneurs at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos to make the case that the UK is one of the best places in the world in which to invest. In the coming weeks, I will set out further details of our plans to kick-start growth in the economy after 14 years of failure from the Conservative party.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Reeves]

The shadow Chancellor is simply not serious. I was on the Opposition side of the House for 14 years, and I think that after a statement one usually asks some questions.

We heard a great deal from the right hon. Gentleman about what he would not do, but we heard absolutely nothing about what he would do. Now we can see what happens when the Leader of the Opposition tells the shadow Cabinet that it should not have any policies. As far as I can tell, the Conservative party’s economic strategy is to say that the UK should not engage with the second largest economy in the world, or indeed with our nearest neighbours and our biggest trading partners in the European Union. The right hon. Gentleman’s economic strategy is to support higher spending but none of the right decisions that are required to deliver sound public finances, and his economic strategy is to ignore the mistakes of the past with no apology to the British people for his part in Liz Truss’s mini-Budget that crashed the economy. I appreciate that, having said that, I may now receive a “cease and desist” letter from her later.

One question that the shadow Chancellor did ask was: why did I go to China? I went to secure tangible benefits for British businesses trading overseas. The right hon. Gentleman said that it was not worth it; let him say that to the representatives of HSBC, Standard Chartered, Prudential, Schroders and the London Stock Exchange who attended those meetings with me last week, all of whom have spoken of the difference that it will make.

I have been under no illusion about the scale of challenges that we face, after 14 years of stagnant economic growth, higher debt and economic uncertainty, and we have seen global economic uncertainty play out in the last week, but leadership is not about ducking these challenges; it is about rising to them. The economic headwinds we face are a reminder that we should—indeed, we must—go further and faster in our plan to kick-start economic growth, which plunged under the last Government, by bringing stability to the public finances after years of instability under the Conservative party, unlocking investment that plummeted under the previous Government and pushing ahead with essential reforms to our economy and public services. That is my message to the House today, because if we get it right, the prize on offer to us—to the British people—is immense: the opportunity to make working people better off by making Britain better off. That is the mandate this Government have, and that is what we will deliver.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Treasury Committee.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to growth in this country and to encouraging investment in the UK. Listening to the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), we would think the country was going to hell in a handcart. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is no time for panic, that it is perfectly possible to manage any pressures on the Budget through astute management of public spending, and that we are a very long way from the approach taken during the years of austerity under the Conservative party?

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for that question. I set out this Government’s fiscal rules at the Budget in October: we will pay for day-to-day spending through tax receipts, and we will get debt down as a share of the economy. We remain committed to those fiscal rules and will meet them at all times.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

I thank the Chancellor for advance sight of her statement.

Let us be blunt: the Budget has not worked. The Chancellor says that the Government’s No. 1 mission is growth, but to date there are no signs that the Government are going to deliver it. The national insurance contributions rise is self-defeating. It undermines growth—it does not unleash it—and it piles pressure on to struggling small businesses and high streets. Nor does it raise anything like the sums of money for the NHS that the Government initially suggested it would. Now we have this much-lauded visit to China, which the Government themselves say is only worth £600 million to the UK over the next five years. That is equivalent to just five and a half hours of NHS spending a year—27.5 hours over the five-year period. All growth is welcome, but this really is small beer.

What are we to make of the Chancellor’s pledge to improve existing channels with China? It is nothing short of warm words and mixed messages. The Chancellor should not have gone to China unless there was a commitment that Jimmy Lai was going to be released.

Does the Chancellor now accept that the national insurance increase will damage growth? Does she accept that there were and still are much fairer ways to raise the necessary revenue without holding back our economy and our high streets? The international market jitters we have seen in the last few days are largely caused by the threat of tariffs by the new Trump Administration, so will the Chancellor guard against the risks of a Trump presidency by rebuilding our trading relationship with our European neighbours?

After the economic vandalism of the previous Conservative Government and their mini-Budget, our NHS and care services are still on their knees. Does the Chancellor accept that wealth and health are two sides of the same coin and that scaling back any investment in the NHS will be not only devastating for local communities but damaging for economic growth?