China: High-level Talks

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, when Xi Jinping visited this Parliament in 2015, the Conservative Prime Minister hailed the UK as the “best partner” in the West for China. Four Conservative Prime Ministers later, it has been quite hard to find out what that consistent position is, and, as the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee has identified, we now have a strategic void with regard to our position on China. Is it still the case, as David Cameron called for in 2015, that

“we should increase our financial and economic co-operation, with the UK as the partner of choice for China in the West”?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, I refer back to the suggestion that was put to me earlier, that our policy should be one of building resilience. That means in our supply chains and in terms of inward investment into the UK. It never makes sense for the UK to be overly dependent on any one country, especially if it is as large, powerful and increasingly assertive as China is.