Future of the Commonwealth

Lord Swire Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right; today is an exciting day. I think it is called the continental free trade area. It brings together 21 African nations, so by no means everybody in Africa, but it is a huge leap forward. In a sense, I am leading on to that.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Richard Graham]

I of course give way to the previous Minister for the Commonwealth.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

Does my hon. Friend agree that another reason to be optimistic is that the incoming President of South Africa was a major figure within the Commonwealth family? He believes in the Commonwealth, he gets it, he is coming to London and hopefully he will make South Africa a far bigger player in the Commonwealth family than has hitherto been the case.

[Richard Graham]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right; he will be very welcome here. The changes in southern Africa, both in Zimbabwe and South Africa itself, give us all hope that the direction of southern Africa is on a positive trend, in the sense that in both cases the changes have been done bloodlessly. I very much hope that South Africa will be a keen part of the Commonwealth again, and that perhaps next year we will be able to welcome Zimbabwe back into the Commonwealth family, which I am sure my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) would welcome, too.

Although the Department for International Trade wants to see, precisely as both hon. Members have mentioned, the benefits of intra-Commonwealth trade spreading more widely across the Commonwealth and reaching forward to a world where free trade agreements could be more possible and practical, the biggest challenge to the ease of doing business is in the non-tariff barriers. At some point we must try to do more about the practical challenges to benefiting from cross-border trade in the way that Malaysia and Singapore, two far east Commonwealth countries, trade together over each other’s borders.

It is amazing that we have not yet made more progress—by “we”, I mean the Commonwealth in this context. I first started working on these issues with the then Minister for the Commonwealth, Lord Howe, a great champion of the Commonwealth since its birth. With Lord Marland leading the charge at the reinvigorated Commonwealth and Enterprise Investment Council—my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) is part of that team—we have the opportunity to help steer the Commonwealth in a more business-friendly direction that will advocate free trade.

The potential for our own free trade agreements in the United Kingdom means that during our period of leadership of the Commonwealth over the next four years, there is no excuse for not seeing a sea change in the number of free trade agreements and direct bilateral business being done throughout the Commonwealth.

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[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as deputy chairman of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council.

I want to join in the congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). My old friend is a stalwart proponent of all things Commonwealth. It is very good that we have Commonwealth debates from time to time. When I was the Commonwealth Minister at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, it became difficult, at times, to persuade officials and others of what an important opportunity the Commonwealth was, although people are finally waking up to that. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames): the Commonwealth cannot replicate the EU, but it is certainly a vital bolt-on part of Britain’s future, in terms of our economic and trading development.

The debate is timely, coming on the eve of the Commonwealth games, which will start in Brisbane shortly. I was the Minister when the games were hosted by the British Government and the city of Glasgow—the Labour city of Glasgow—which hosted them so well on behalf of us all.

As we look forward to CHOGM in just under a month’s time, I am sure there will be a huge turnout from Heads of State, not least because Her Majesty is entertaining at home. Indeed, I would not be at all surprised—this is all I will say—if there is an extremely high level of participation by all members of the royal family.

In the time remaining, let me give an unashamed plug for the work of the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council and the stalwart job our small team is doing. We will have 800 senior businesses in London, and we will hold a series of sessions, including on accessing modern financial services, easing the pathway for business and growth, harnessing Commonwealth technology and innovation, creating a new attitude to sustainable business, mobilising an export economy, and attracting inward investment. Those things are important not only to the United Kingdom, but right across the Commonwealth.

The combined GDP of the Commonwealth will reach $14 trillion by 2020. Intra-Commonwealth trade was $525 billion in 2015, and that is set to rise to $1 trillion by 2020. We have heard a lot of statistics today about what the Commonwealth stands for, but I believe they are worth repeating. The Commonwealth is currently a group of 53 countries. I echo the desire for Zimbabwe to return to the Commonwealth fold one day soon, after having been thrown out because of Mr Mugabe. In a rather different way, the Maldives exited itself from the Commonwealth, and I very much hope that it, too, will return to the Commonwealth family, where it surely belongs. There is a road to redemption, as evidenced by Fiji, which was out of the Commonwealth for a while but now plays an increasing role within it. I suspect it will play an even bigger role in the years ahead.

It is worth bearing in mind when we talk about the Commonwealth that we are talking about a quarter of the world’s GDP and a third of the world’s population, 60% of whom, as we have heard, are under 30. At 1 billion people, the middle class of India alone exceeds the population of Europe. These are huge numbers.

I think that the Commonwealth has a rosy future. We are looking forward to the business forum that will take place over three days from 16 to 18 April, just before CHOGM. I think that will set the pace for a good Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. When it is all over, hopefully we will all congratulate ourselves, but that is when the real work begins. I hope that we can persuade colleagues in the Government to give the same attention to the Commonwealth after the Heads of Government meeting as they have suddenly been giving it in the last few weeks, in the run-up to that meeting.