Global Britain

Richard Graham Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con) [V]]

This debate is led by the Department for International Trade, but in truth, if global Britain is to move from good intentions to successful strategy, it will need to involve all of Government, every constituency and many people—every immigrant nurse, every exporter, every person in our diverse communities who may have come from anywhere in the world but is contributing to our cities and our nation. In many ways, the pandemic is a metaphor for what can be achieved, for the key ingredients of our huge progress on vaccination have come from academics, scientists, the Government-created vaccine taskforce, taxpayer and corporate investment, pharmaceutical and regulatory leadership, and now primary care networks working closely with the NHS and the Army. That combination, involving so many skills, translates into a huge international commitment through GAVI, which was led at its recent summit by the UK. This involved a huge commitment of £330 million for each of the next five years by our own nation, as well as a huge number of other countries, with Oxford-AstraZeneca becoming the first manufacturer to guarantee huge numbers of doses of vaccine for global distribution.

So the idea that the UK has become little England, cut off from the world, does not match the reality of global Britain and the way in which we are facing the greatest global challenge of 2020-21. In our chairmanship of the G7 and the climate change summit COP26 this year, we have other opportunities to try to help the world resolve some of our greatest challenges. This means not only leading by example, which the Prime Minister’s 10-point green plan and his financial commitments bring alive, but working with the crucial partners to achieve common goals, and that includes both the United States of America and China. Global Britain therefore needs calm diplomacy focused on delivery; strong values; and a pragmatic recognition that this House accepts that there is little social justice without a strong economy and that exports bring huge mutual benefits to both our partners abroad and here.

There is so much I would like to say, including about the valiant work of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, supporting open societies, recognising the great efforts we are making for the trans-Pacific partnership in Asia and, above all, the opportunity to show that we can, as President Reagan put it, achieve anything we want to so long as we do not mind who takes the credit.