Bilateral Trade: United Kingdom and Africa

Lord Risby Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Risby (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Sheikh on introducing this debate. I have read his report on Ethiopia—a country that has had a difficult past but has certainly made enormous progress—with great interest, and I very much look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Oates.

Looking back particularly over the past decade or so, we have seen a huge number of African success stories—I pay tribute to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, who is trade envoy to South Africa, where such progress has been made, and my role as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Algeria is one that I absolutely cherish and enjoy—but the truth is that there are some difficulties on the horizon, in which I believe we can play a role in helping. Many of the economies in Africa have been based on rising commodity prices, but we are now seeing some weakness and there is some concern, and of course the question is how long this will go on for.

A number of African countries have sought to look at diversification, and here we have a unique capability. In the reform of their capital markets and their banking systems—of course, without that their growth would be inhibited—we have a unique offer. We have an outreach programme by the Stock Exchange that interfaces with other countries. We have in this country unique support systems involving lawyers, accountants and insurance specialists, and I have seen all of this on offer to our friends in Algeria. Indeed, I praise the work of the Lord Mayor, who has recently been to Africa, and the previous Lord Mayor, whom I had the privilege of being with in north Africa during her visit.

The second point that I would like to make is that many African countries have a demographic challenge of young people, and we in this country have been quite successful latterly in embracing technological change. We have seen a record start-up rate in this country by international standards, including the establishment of Tech City, and we have set about abolishing some of the red tape, regulation and overprotective employment laws that were inhibiting start-up activity. These are things that, in my role, I have been trying to point out to Algerian friends as very important, and in these aspects of our life we want to share our experience with other African countries, which I believe will welcome what we have done. As my noble friend the Minister contemplates improving business links with Africa, of course there are millions of young Africans who are extremely well educated and motivated and eager to deploy modern technology to start up their own businesses—this is something that I hear everywhere. However, as we look to commodity-rich Africa and help it to grapple with the challenge of diversification, I would just point out that, in a country such as Algeria, which is energy-dependent, it has become very necessary to improve the financial infrastructure—and, again, this is an area where we have an unparalleled advantage.

I would also mention the importance of the expansion of the British Council in a number of African countries. English has become the dominant language of modernity, telecommunications and technology, and in many African countries English is well spoken and can be a key part of our offer. I hope that this aspect, one of the key underpinnings of our relationship, can continue to be offered and expanded.

As my noble friend, who is spearheading so effectively our export effort, contemplates how we can improve our bilateral relationships with a number of African countries, I hope that all these things can be offered to supplement the dynamism and energy that exists in African countries but also to help with the challenge of diversification, which at this juncture is for many of them an important issue that they have to face.