Oral Answers to Questions

Lisa Nandy Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I was in New Delhi and Mumbai last week doing just that. India is a key strategic partner for the United Kingdom. It is the world’s largest democracy. There are huge opportunities. We are shortly about to launch trade talks with India and we are working to increase two-way investment flows.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I welcome the Foreign Secretary to her role and congratulate her on becoming the second woman in history to hold the post. I think I speak for Labour Members when I say that we look forward to welcoming the third. The Foreign Secretary is right to make delivering build back better a priority. COP26 will fail without a commitment to clean and reliable infrastructure in the developing world. We will never be taken seriously in Beijing if we do not claw back some of the influence we have lost in the world. She is right to identify that being a pushover with the Treasury does nothing for our national interest and nothing for our national security. However, the non-official development aid budget has been halved—ODA spending is down by £4 billion—and the Treasury’s accounting tricks will leave her coffers almost empty. With just days to go until the most important climate summit in a generation, has she clawed back some of that funding in tomorrow’s Budget, or will we see the same story playing out of a Foreign Secretary who is not taken seriously in Beijing because she is not taken seriously around her own Cabinet table?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the hon. Lady for her warm welcome to the Dispatch Box. I look forward to working with her over the coming years—many, many years. I do not think the Chancellor would be very happy if I announced the spending review today—and I am not sure you, Mr Speaker, would be very happy either. However, I assure her that we are absolutely prioritising our humanitarian aid budget. We are prioritising women and girls as part of our development budget, and we are prioritising investing in honest, reliable infrastructure in developing countries, particularly clean, green infrastructure.

[Lisa Nandy]

If the Foreign Secretary is still the only person in this country who has not seen the contents of the Budget, may I refer her to the Daily Mail, which has the entire read-out for her and for the rest of us?

When the Foreign Secretary’s budget has been devastated over the past 10 years of Tory Government, can she not see the problem with no new money being announced in the Budget tomorrow? The Department she inherited was hollowed out under her predecessor and everything that she says she plans to do depends on her ability to reverse that. This House needs not more words but a serious plan. Only a few months ago, Members of this House made clear our view that what has been happening in Xinjiang constitutes genocide. She is an enthusiastic supporter of the UK’s application to join the trans-Pacific partnership, which she mentioned in relation to an earlier question. However, China’s application leaves open the very prospect that this House sought to avoid and that her predecessor blocked. We should not be entering into preferential trade arrangements with countries that commit genocide. If she cannot give the House guarantees that she has won the battle for resources, can she at least guarantee that she will veto China’s membership if the application is successful?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady about the terrible atrocities that are taking place in Xinjiang, and I raised that with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, on the phone last week, as well as our concerns over Hong Kong, which I have also raised publicly. It is important that we trade with China, but we need to ensure that it is reliable trade, that it avoids strategic dependency and that it does not involve the violation of intellectual property rights or forced technology transfer. I urge China to respect the rules of the World Trade Organisation. Of course, the United Kingdom is not yet a member of the CPTPP, so we do not have rights over decisions, but I am clear that any country that enters the CPTPP needs to follow its high rules and standards, including high environmental and labour standards.