UK Exports

Lord Patten Excerpts

Wednesday 8th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten (Con)]

My Lords, every time that I get into our utterly dependable 1950 Series 1, Mark 1 Land Rover down in the West Country, I am reminded that its very construction and materials are the result of a post-war “Export or die” approach, for it is made of ex-aerospace-destined aluminium. Steel was reserved for only the most critical of exports, such as the Austin Atlantic for the United States. Exporting was critical then, but how much more so now when the current account deficit is the largest—at 5.4% of nominal GDP—since records began in 1948, when those very Land Rovers were being designed.

The Minister will be relieved to hear that I think that the Government are developing a correct strategy, starting with the UK being the world’s most open market to inward investment, net of what we decide are truly strategic assets in the national interest, such as defence. I hope that we will never adopt the approach, for example, of the French, who stepped in to stop foreign investment in Danone, declaring its yoghurt to be a strategic national asset. Rather, our openness is critical for exporting, as the very flood of recent welcome investment from abroad will then in its turn generate much UK-based exporting abroad.

It is clear that Dr Fox and the DIT have constructed a good template for our strategy: 50 key countries, 200 key sectors and all the rest, with which I agree, although I would like to see some specific concentration on our relationships with the Commonwealth countries, about which my noble friend Lord Marland, who knows much more about these things, may later have some thoughts. Whatever, once embedded, these aims must be stayed with, be not tinkered with and be long term. This is because persistence pays. Years back, in the windows of the then DTI down the road in Victoria Street were plastered signs saying something like, “Exporting is fun”. Well, it may be rewarding in the end and eventually enjoyable when things turn out well, but exporting is a slog, capital intensive, risky and grinding hard work, as networks are built up on the ground. To that point and to the suggestion from the noble Viscount that we need to regenerate the business views of so many in the Civil Service, I wonder whether the Minister shares my concern at the ever-accelerating roundabout of job hopping by civil servants at home and in our posts abroad. If exporting is a long-term business and it takes years to build relationships, we need to have people in post who are there for the same length of time and have the same staying power to help our people in what they try to do, rather than moving on.

The Department for International Trade says, “Let’s make 2017 the year of exporting”. It is really a decade of exporting that we need now. I ask my noble friend the Minister whether the Government have set a target for increasing the small 11% of UK businesses that export to a more realistic number by, let us say, 2025 and if so what that target is. This should be a target-driven business.