The Importance of the Relationship Between the United Kingdom and India

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Viscount. As others have done, I warmly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, for securing this debate. It has allowed us to hear and pay tribute to Lord Soley, who is no longer with us—I think he is having his drinks upstairs. I thought it was a neat trick of his to ensure that he had a standing ovation before and after his speech, with the Adjournment. We enjoyed it very much.

We also enjoyed the maiden speeches. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, will be busy in this House, along with her colleagues from Northern Ireland. We look forward to her contributions, as we do to those of the noble Earl, Lord Minto. As someone who took the title of “Tweed”, lives in Roxburghshire, has been to Minto, is from the area and represented a neighbouring constituency, I welcome him particularly warmly. There are few records—I checked—of the Elliots reiving from the Purvises; I think that that is solely because we were so poor that we did not have cattle. Nevertheless, from his family having the honourable profession of being reivers in the Borders, it has been a slippery slope down to law and politics. I welcome him very warmly to this House.

In introducing the debate so well and comprehensively, the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, remarked how interesting it is that it has taken place after a debate recognising 75 years of the Windrush generation. Some of the similarities that she referred to struck me. In a debate that we recently had on India, I said that there is no part of our country that is not touched by our relationship, whether it is our high streets, our research centres or our NHS, which is the same age as the Windrush generation and Indian independence. We are the country that we are today because of India and the contribution that it has made. In the visits I have been fortunate enough to make there, I have been in awe of the magnificence and diversity of the history and culture of the world’s largest democracy.

There is another alcoholic link beyond the beer entrepreneurship of the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, if he will forgive me. India is quite a remarkable destination for malt and Scotch Whisky—our combinations are not just beer.

Some 3.1% of the population of this country is of Indian descent; that is the size of a nation within our family of nations in the UK. The contribution has been huge. That close relationship allows us to debate the complexities, as the noble Lords, Lord Swire, Lord Anderson and Lord Hannay, indicated, when it comes to our relations with other friends with whom we have similarly deep relations, such as Pakistan. We can have debates on sensitive areas such as the dispute in Kashmir and raise issues such as the decision in 2019 to remove special status. We can seek to play a role, with the United States and others, in having an understanding to seek peace in this area. We very much understand the complexities associated with this.

Dr Gareth Price, a former senior research fellow in the Asia-Pacific programme at Chatham House, has commented widely on some who may be reconceptualising the secular agenda in India. The diaspora in this country has very close relationships to those debates. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Sharif has called for third-party support in the relationships with the UAE in particular. I would be interested to know from the Minister whether we are engaged with our allies—India, Pakistan, the Gulf and the United States—on this debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Swire, talked about recent decisions. India is a full, sovereign country making its own strategic decisions for its interests, but they are not always aligned with ours. We recognise that; we are friendly nations. We want to be partners in areas but, as the noble Lord indicated, on the decisions on oil purchases, the rupee-rouble swaps that I have raised with the Minister previously and voting in the United Nations, we need a proper, mature relationship—both on our interests, which I will come on to, and on areas where we disagree.

In areas of human development, we are partners. It is interesting to read the FCDO’s human rights report, published in December, which highlights areas where the UK and India are working together on tackling some of the world’s most complex and difficult issues, such as workers’ rights in garments factories. India is taking the lead in tackling human trafficking in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, while the UK and India are working on preventing bonded labour in Uttar Pradesh as well as working in West Bengal and other areas to support development for vulnerable children.

I have seen for myself UK and Indian partnerships in Kolkata—for instance, the support for a charity for girls that focuses on sport and rugby. I took rugby kit bags from the SRU to Kolkata and saw how the UK and India are working together.

I have one final area of concern before I move on to the enormous opportunities that the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, rightly highlighted; it will be no surprise to the Minister. The Government have indicated that, at the Carbis Bay summit that we led, the G7, alongside the Republic of Korea, South Africa, India and Australia, signed up to an open society statement. Oxfam, directly to me, and the Government have recognised that the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act in India—it has halted the work of Oxfam India—is jarring when it comes to the open society statement. I would be interested to hear what the Minister can say on the dialogue we are having with India about that.

The opportunities here are enormous. The noble Lord, Lord Sahota, rightly referred to the five areas of the 2030 Roadmap for India-UK Future Relations. The first area is connecting our countries and people and, at its heart, enhanced institutional structures. I would be grateful if the Minister could outline at the outset where we are on this and where we want to be. I, for one, would love to have much greater links between this Parliament and the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, parliamentarians to parliamentarians. I have been to both chambers through Commonwealth Parliamentary Association work but I would love for there to be far more bilateral parliamentary work, Parliament to Parliament. Our committees could do joint work with theirs as we work on some of these areas. I would love for parliamentary institutions to be included.

As for trade and prosperity, the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and others indicated the deep level of relationship that could be enhanced by free trade. I, too, welcome the sense of reality on the trade agreement that now exists with the current Secretary of State. I am enthusiastically in favour of a trade agreement. In terms of key areas and sectors to be developed, I would love for there to be innovative discussions on mobility and to have some kind of agreement with India that is similar to what we have with Australia and New Zealand—it is slightly painful to me that France is ahead of us on the mutual recognition of qualifications—as well as discussions on procurement, services and research. As the noble Baroness indicated, in terms of a defence and security partnership, no two nations could have a better way of working on cyberspace, when we look at the difficulties. Work between the UK and India on the non-proliferation of cyberaggression could be a gift to the world. Of course, there should also be discussions on the climate.

Finally, there is another 75th anniversary next week: that of the death of Gandhi. He said:

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever”.


I reviewed the Hansard of the Second Reading in the Lords of the Indian Independence Act on 16 July 1947. From these Benches, my predecessor, Viscount Samuel, ended his remarks by describing the then Bill as

“a treaty of peace without a war.”—[Official Report, 16/7/1947; col. 832.]

We celebrate 75 years of peaceful relations between two sovereign nations, sometimes with disagreement but, more often than not, with agreement. Our people and communities are so linked together that, whatever we do, our future is dependent on our Indian relations and the world’s is dependent on India.