Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Kerr Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

The hon. Gentleman may be slightly confusing the Board of Trade with the Department for International Trade. They have slightly different functions. When the Board of Trade met in Wales recently, we presented a number of awards to Welsh exporters, but the Board of Trade is an augmentation of the DIT in that it is able to take its own trade missions abroad. The advantage of the DIT to Wales is that it provides access to a much bigger network than could ever be achieved by the Welsh Government, and thus gives Welsh business a far greater capability than it would otherwise have.

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

9. I was delighted to welcome my right hon. Friend to Stirling last year for the first ever meeting of the Board of Trade in Scotland. He has mentioned Scotch beef. The National Farmers Union of Scotland has launched a social media campaign, #BackScotchBeef. Will my right hon. Friend be beefing up his Department in Scotland, to provide more presence and resources to support the export of Scotch beef?

[Dr Fox]

I am delighted to say that the outcomes of the Department’s efforts have already been pretty beefy. The important point is, however, that because Scotland is part of the United Kingdom and therefore has access to a Department of State with a very large international footprint, we are better able to tackle issues such as market access to Scottish beef than Scotland would ever be if it were an independent state.