Manufacturing

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Popat]

My Lords, it is true that the Government’s target is to achieve the £1 trillion export level by 2020. That is quite a challenging and ambitious target, and we will continue to work towards it. We are developing an economic road map to the £1 trillion target and we will draw on this to inform our priorities for the future. We are also investing huge sums of money in UKTI, which is actively pursuing measures to make sure that British companies are able to export abroad. Most importantly, the recent initiative of onshoring—bringing production back from other countries to the UK—will help our export ambition.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that, in view of his earlier answer, we should therefore concentrate our efforts on the Commonwealth, the Anglosphere and the markets of the future, and stop wasting so much of our energy on that “Titanic” which is the European Union?

[Lord Popat]

My Lords, the Commonwealth is our family, and we are very keen to see more business done in Commonwealth countries—hence the Government have appointed ambassadors to some of them to see how we can increase trade with them.