Lord Mitchell
Main Page: Lord Mitchell (Labour - Life peer)
Lord Popat
My Lords, just under half our exporting is to the European Union. We are working to continue our trade relations with the European Union, and we really need to ensure that we reform it to make it more competitive and accountable. It is crucial that we continue to trade with it and that we increase our trade with it: hence, we have 27 UKTI offices in those countries.
Lord Mitchell
My Lords, these answers hardly fill one with confidence, do they? UK Export Finance was set up specifically to help all businesses to export more, but let us look at the results. Over one year—2011-12—the number of small and medium-sized companies receiving help from UKEF has been the magnificent total of 21. Cannot we do better than that?
Lord Popat
My Lords, this time last year I asked for an ad-hoc cross-party committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Cope, to be set up. We had a report in the early part of this year, and received a response from business this week on what we can do to help our SMEs to export more, including how the UK Export Finance scheme can work more effectively for those who export in those countries.