UK Trade and Investment

Mark Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I am pleased to have secured this Adjournment debate on the performance of UK Trade & Investment. The last time we had a debate on UKTI on the Floor of the House was last March, when it was secured by my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys). I very much regret that there are not more opportunities for Members to scrutinise UKTI’s performance.

I very much welcome the work done by Lord Green and his colleagues at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, but it is regrettable that so few Members of Parliament seek opportunities to scrutinise UKTI’s performance. We debate a great deal in this Chamber about how to slice up and apportion the cake, but exports are about making the cake bigger. I spent most of my working life before entering this House in exports, and I feel passionately about their importance in bringing wealth and prosperity to our nation.

As the European Union continues to diminish in importance vis-à-vis British exports, so I turn to the middle east and north Africa. I pay tribute to my American intern, Mr Justin King—it is entirely plausible that one day he will become a congressman, and I very much hope so. He is helping me greatly to interview hundreds of small British companies. They are coming from all over the United Kingdom to my office in the House of Commons to show me their evidence and experience of UKTI, and of trying to interact with it.

Before I continue with my speech I want to give three examples of why the MENA area—middle east and north Africa—is so important. I am chairman of two all-party two groups: the Saudi Arabia all-party group, and the all-party group on Libya. When we went to Saudi Arabia, the Saudi King himself admonished me saying that the lack of British exports to that country was regrettable. He said that all our European Union competitors were motoring ahead, and that it was regrettable that the United Kingdom is falling behind our main competitors in exports to Saudi Arabia.

Sixty British companies operate in Tunisia, compared with 1,800 French companies. I will repeat that—60 compared with 1,800. I was the first British Member of Parliament ever to go to Mauritania since its independence in 1960, and almost no British companies export there. We are good at exporting to countries that speak English, but the French-speaking part of the world is almost a vortex for British interests, particularly commercial interests. If this week has shown anything, given the problems in Algeria and Mali, it is that it is essential that we engage with those strategically important countries of north Africa, primarily by assisting our own companies to interact with those countries, and help them with exports, and—vitally—technology transfer.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does he also agree that there is a role for promoting our higher education institutions in those countries? My hon. Friend does a great deal, and as Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Wales Office he does a lot for Wales. I am sure he will be aware of the significant and important businesses we could be exporting that originate in our universities in Wales.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I concur with my hon. Friend and he reminds me of an important point. Whenever I go to the middle east I see that the British brand is so strong. Because we are British we tend to hide our light under a bushel, but overseas the British brand is incredibly strong—it is sterling, A-plus, gold standard—and people are desperate to buy British.

My hon. Friend is correct. Shrewsbury school, one of the best private schools in the world, is so popular that we cannot accommodate all the foreigners who wish to study there. They have had to build a Shrewsbury school in Bangkok, and there are current negotiations to build another in the middle east. I completely concur with my hon. Friend.

Let me say how important advertising is. I understand there are constraints on Government budgets, and that the Cabinet Office is obviously not keen to loosen the purse strings. There should, however, be a significant increase in the budget for UKTI. I want a nationwide campaign in this country, through the television, media, newspapers, and even product placements in soap operas, by which we constantly inform small and medium-sized companies throughout the country that UKTI exists and that there are opportunities to engage with it and for them to receive support to export.

I still remember the “Tell Sid” campaign in the 1980s to try to get us to buy British Gas. I want such a campaign now—a campaign that people talk about and get excited about.

The best campaign I have experienced in my seven years as a Member of Parliament was Joanna Lumley’s Gurkha campaign. She revolutionised the campaign when she took it over. The media suddenly became extraordinarily interested. I want a national figure—somebody of renowned business intellect and experience, whether Richard Branson or Alan Sugar—to have a programme on television. It could be called “Export Apprentice” rather than just “The Apprentice”. They should also be a guru and a champion and spearhead a nationwide campaign to ensure that our small and medium-sized companies are passionate about exporting.