Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

3. What steps his Department is taking to promote the Global Britain campaign.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

13. What steps his Department is taking to promote the Global Britain campaign.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)]

Global Britain is a programme to help to explain to the world, but also to the people of this country, what I think they do not often suspect, which is the full range of Britain’s military, cultural, commercial and diplomatic influence in the world. It is important to do that now, particularly as we make our Brexit—or Bre-entry into the world, as we should perhaps call it—to help people to understand that a more global Britain will be a more prosperous Britain.

[Boris Johnson]

I am delighted to tell my hon. Friend that over the next 10 years we will, for instance, be spending £178 billion on defence—we are one of the few countries in NATO to contribute 2% of our GDP to defence. As a result, there will be more funds available, for instance, to support companies in Yeovil, such as the helicopter company Leonardo MW, which, as far as I know, builds Wildcat submarine-hunting helicopters, among other vital bits of kit.

[Mark Pawsey]

Does the Secretary of State agree that, in addition to defence spending, soft power—including the effective use of aid and increasing levels of trade and investment, which are helping businesses to find the most suitable partners—remains an essential part of the UK’s approach to boosting security in some of the more dangerous parts of the world?

[Boris Johnson]

I quite agree. Perhaps I can just give Members one stunning fact, which should seldom be off their lips when selling UK universities, for instance, to the world: of the Kings, Queens, Presidents and Prime Ministers in the world today, one in seven was educated in this country, and London has more international students than any other city in the world.