UK Trade and Investment

Adrian Bailey Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Laura Sandys]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. I have started two small businesses, both in the middle of recessions. We do not have enough people who have a business focus.

I was quite surprised that 1,000 people work in UKTI in different regions of the United Kingdom, and there may be great value in that. I would like to see a lot more of them in our constituencies, perhaps using the opportunities that Members of Parliament can offer, so that they can understand a particular constituency.

We need a much stronger commercial focus. Small businesses have one language; in a strange way, it is almost a universal language. It can travel even if people do not speak the same language. It is more important to have that business language when people talk to someone else than it is necessarily to have location or certain areas of expertise. We need more commercial people.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Lady made an extremely important and valid point about using our multicultural and multinational economy and contacts to attract business to this country. Under the previous Government, the strategic investment fund seized upon that idea. To be fair, the current Government, through UKTI, are trying to do that through an organisation known as Catalyst. However, I am unclear as to how much progress we have made. I thank the hon. Lady for raising the subject, because it is important. Perhaps the Minister, given that advance notice, will be able to give us some information.

[Laura Sandys]

I reiterate that question to the Minister. Hopefully we will understand more about the issue.

Another point, which arises from the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), is about how we help and assist small businesses—I am talking about very small businesses. For example, some of the ways UKTI is approaching trade are positive, but they are for medium-sized companies. There is a strong internet and web-based opportunity, which I have mentioned before in the House. Why are we not translating one or two web pages about small businesses that we know might be of interest to x, y and z markets? That would offer them an opportunity to market online from their office, rather than having to go on expensive trade missions.

The Minister has had his own small business and knows well that it is not actually money that affects small businesses, but time. The idea of spending three or four days speculatively is not really feasible for many businesses, but we could start to amalgamate websites to push certain sectors. For example, in my constituency there is a little brewery called Gadds’. It has five employees and has just made its first sale to Japan on the basis of somebody picking up a quote from a website about microbreweries—I understand that Japan is very excited by microbreweries. Why do we not have a web page in Japanese on our UKTI site that talks about 20 lovely, exciting and interesting microbreweries? Let us try to use what we tell everybody else to use—internet platforms that can save money and time. It is very speculative, but it does not cost anybody anything either.

In conclusion, I would like to ask the Minister some favours. Can we please try to put enterprise zones and areas that have received regional growth fund moneys on the UKTI website? I have been asking for that to happen for months. It is really important as an inward investment platform, but there is no reference to those important coalition initiatives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barry Gardiner]

I think that I should just take interventions and not make my speech, because every one of them is excellent. The hon. Member for The Cotswolds is right. I disagreed with him on his earlier points about RDAs, but on this point I agree: benchmarking and international comparators are essential if we are to see what we are doing. Also, there must be much closer scrutiny, performance management and benchmarking within UKTI to ensure that we are delivering what we promised. I will mention accountability in that sense later.

[Mr Bailey]

I am just giving my hon. Friend another opportunity.

A relevant point made in my Select Committee’s report last year was that a problem with UKTI is that it has been focused on measuring processes, rather than outcomes. Doing the latter is far more difficult. Does my hon. Friend agree that to assess its effectiveness, we have to find some mechanism by which we can measure UKTI’s impact?

[Barry Gardiner]

I would that every debate I participated in shed as much light on the subject as this one appears to be doing, without my saying a word. My hon. Friend, who chairs the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, speaks with great knowledge on the subject and has pinpointed one of the key problems. It is a problem not simply for UKTI but for government as a whole. Government is keen to measure outputs, but reticent about measuring outcomes. That process transformation is required, as my hon. Friend’s Select Committee has pointed out.

While Germany and France bolster their economies with effective trading bodies, UKTI presents itself to those who use it as slack, unfocused, inefficient and even, in some cases, a deterrent to investors. Consider what Dr Wu Kegang, chief China adviser to the British Chambers of Commerce, told the BBC last year. He said that Chinese investors

“have no idea how to enter the British market. They don’t know how to build business channels inside the UK to promote their innovative brands and products”.

Global economic power is shifting from west to east and UKTI is failing to adjust adequately to the new reality. The UK is falling behind in investment in BRIC countries; inward foreign direct investment is dropping; and our global share of trade has slumped. Recently, the news has been dominated by the difficulties that British companies are facing in securing contracts over their foreign competitors. Just last month, BAE lost out to the French company, Dassault Aviation, for a contract with the Indian air force worth £7 billion to the UK economy. We cannot afford to lose, and we should not be losing, such a contract.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure, once again, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess. I thank the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) for securing the debate, and I congratulate them.

I have served on two Business, Innovation and Skills Committee inquiries covering UKTI, one as a lay member under my Conservative predecessor as Chair, the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff), and the other as Chair myself when we took up the issue of foreign trade and investment last year. We are in a rapidly moving world and Select Committees can take part in the process; it is most important that we do not just produce reports, make recommendations, get replies and then put them on the shelf, but that we examine how policies have evolved over time. My Committee will certainly be looking again, in the near future, at the issues raised today.

I have heard a lot of criticism of UKTI today, as well as what might be called faint praise, some of which reflects fairly perceptions of UKTI. Certainly the figures quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North from the CBI survey by Ernst and Young genuinely reflect the mixed perception of the sort of services that UKTI provides. However, in defence of UKTI, the service has had some problems. The report of the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills states:

“All departments must be made to realise that they have a major role to play to help Britain trade its way out of recession and sustain its long term prosperity.”

That echoes the words of the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), and as a fellow Cotswoldian, I could not agree more. The report continued:

“The Committee found that UKTI is, overall, a successful agency but that it has been subject to too much interference from other parts of government. Its priorities have been changed too often, leading to a lack of clarity. Treasury imposed revenue targets have also forced UKTI to offer businesses services it is able to charge for, rather than providing the services which will most benefit individual companies and the country.”

Those were the conclusions of my predecessor Committee about the previous Government’s policy. The problem is that it has not changed much under the present Government. We should measure UKTI in terms of national policy and in the context of national priorities.

When the Government came to power, they talked about rebalancing the economy, and highlighting the crucial role of export growth within it. I expected UKTI, as the most strategic service capable of delivering that overall policy objective, to be strengthened and to be given greater influence not only over the policy of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, but over other departmental policy. Regrettably, a series of delays, confusion and muddle has blunted its effectiveness.

First, there was delay in the appointment of the new head when the previous one left—a four-month delay in a service that is vital to our ability to grow out of recession. Then there was delay in appointing Lord Green as Minister for Trade and Investment. He was appointed in January 2011, about seven months after the Government came to power. Given the point that has been made so many times about the importance of our top ministerial representatives banging the drum for Britain in foreign countries, that delay hampered UKTI’s ability to maximise its role and potential.

There were funding cuts of 17%, leading to a 19% cut in trade advisers. When the Minister appeared before the Select Committee, he conceded that, in the short term at least, the number of companies that could be advised would be reduced. That was remarkable at a time when all public announcements were about the huge importance of exporting our way out of the recession, and the level of commitment needed to do so.

The hon. Member for South Thanet made some important points about the abolition of the regional development agencies, and the appointment of a body to carry out that inward investment process. There were huge delays, and a period of confusion. We all have our opinions about the regional development agencies, but they carried out that function with various degrees of ability.

[Laura Sandys]

It is interesting that we have a very effective organisation, Locate in Kent, which is very Kent-based. From our perspective, regional development agencies did not understand us, so they were never going to have a function. We need speed and flexibility of action, instead of having to wait for bureaucracy. Whatever the organisation and whatever the structure, we need to act fast, and to be nimble and flexible, instead of institutional.

[Mr Bailey]

I accept the hon. Lady’s comments. There were different experiences of the RDAs’ work, and they generally seemed to be more highly regarded the further north they were. However, there was undoubtedly a body of expertise embedded in them, which suddenly found itself unwanted. The introduction of local enterprise partnerships may or may not be able to fulfil part of that function, but for a long time there was no clear source of advice, information or propaganda that could be used to make the necessary local connections by any company contemplating inward investment. That may be changing in one or two places, but we have lost a year at least, and the consequences in some areas are serious.

Overall, the problem has been that because of the delays—there was also a five-month delay in publication of the UKTI strategy—the impression has been that, despite all the public pronouncements, the service is not a serious priority. Not only have we lost some of the services that were previously carried out, there has been a lack of direction and focus for a considerable time as a result. I accept that the perception of UKTI has been mixed, but the Government have failed to make it the sort of priority service that it should be—I totally agree with the comments made by the hon. Member for The Cotswolds—and that has not helped it to perform its function.

I welcome a number of recent developments, which may change that situation, and the Select Committee will consider them, including the extra investment of £45 million. The recently signed agreement between UKTI and the European Chamber of Commerce, which has been anxious for that agreement for a long time, could be a model for the integration of our foreign trading practitioners, with UKTI, the Foreign Office and civil servants pledged to make those connections. There is probably huge scope for reproducing that sort of model in other parts of the world.

UKTI has had its efforts blunted by other problems arising from other departmental priorities. The visa regime has certainly not helped its efforts in China and India. That has been a constant source of grievance in those countries, and it has not created the right sort of climate, or the feeling that Britain is open for business, which should underpin UKTI’s efforts there on our behalf .

The Export Credits Guarantee Department was roundly criticised by the British Exporters Association before the Select Committee. To be fair to the Government, they have tried to act on that in a way that the previous Government did not, but the jury is out on how successful their actions will be. The overall problem for small businesses is access to finance to allow them to invest and to take the available opportunities in foreign markets. I know from personal experience in my constituency of a number of companies with export opportunities that have not been able to realise them because they could not lay their hands on the finance required to invest to meet the necessary production targets.

I return to the point about departmental priorities, and the importance of getting the top people in our ministerial hierarchy to go out and beat the drum for Britain. The hon. Member for The Cotswolds made the valid point that going out to sign a trade agreement is only one thing, and I have heard feedback from companies expressing their concerns that while they do the work to get trade agreements ready, the Ministers just go along to sign them and take part in the photo shoot.

In Germany, for example, political leaders are constantly on the phone to work with and promote industry, but we in Britain do not do that in the same way. That is not a criticism of the current Government; it was the same under the previous Government. One problem is our governmental structure. Why does the Prime Minister return to the House every Wednesday to answer questions when he could be out working to get contracts signed that will help British people get British jobs and strengthen our economy? The Government should consider changing some of our constitutional structures and parliamentary procedures to free up our leaders to carry out that ambassadorial role more effectively than they are able to do at the moment. I do not blame individuals because the nature of their job militates against such involvement. However, if we are serious about trying to refocus the whole Government on such a priority, we must look at government in the round.

A number of other Departments have pursued policies that run contrary to our objectives. The abolition of regional development agencies before there was an effective replacement mechanism is one example, as is the Home Office and its visa regime. Such things work against our trade objectives, because our departmental structure does not consider overall priorities that will help us grow our economy. The hon. Member for The Cotswolds made that point, although perhaps in a slightly less critical way.

The fact remains, however, that the structure within our Government does not focus on growth as it should. If UKTI is to be effective, we must give it more investment, monitor the outcomes of its work, and ensure that other departmental priorities work to maximise its potential. If we do that, UKTI may genuinely be able to lead this country towards export-led growth and the position that we were in many years ago, developing our exports and our role in the world economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wright]

That is an important point. I am interested in looking at where we can gain knowledge and experience from other successful exporting nations. I look to Germany, although we cannot replicate Germany in the UK. It would be wrong to suggest that we can. However, a successful ingredient of the German economy, with its emphasis on manufacturing and engineering, on the long term, on worker and management co-operation and on good regional financial opportunities, is the Mittelstand, the medium-sized companies often seen as Germany’s economic backbone. It is interesting to see what they have. They have a relentless focus on export markets, often in global niche markets, allied to close relationships with their supply chains, as the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) mentioned, and distribution networks. Will the Minister tell us what steps UKTI has taken to embrace mid-sized companies? How often have mid-sized companies been taken on trade delegations?

[Mr Adrian Bailey]

One of the points made in the CBI report was that more needed to be done for medium-sized businesses that are exporting at the moment to find a wider range of export opportunities. I hope that the Minister will respond to that as well.

[Mr Wright]

The Chair of the Select Committee is right.

UKTI is suggesting new products: the “passport to export” for new-to-export companies, and the “gateway to global growth”, aimed at helping established exporters tap into new markets. This seems to be a good approach that has the support of the wider business community, but I want to press the Minister on the benchmarks for success. What are they? What progress has been made and how many companies have benefited from those two new products?

That leads me to the strategic document that UKTI published a year or so ago, “Britain Open for Business”. The strategic approach that it suggests—expanding exports by securing new businesses overseas, especially through increasing exports to high growth and emerging markets—seems appropriate, given what hon. Members have said today. We also welcome the sectors that the strategy identifies in which Britain has a competitive advantage and from which we could derive greater growth in exports in the next few years.

There can be a greater link-up between industrial and trade strategy. “Britain Open for Business” hints tantalisingly at that, but more can be done. The document is light on detail, which in many respects is understandable, given that it is a high-level strategic document. However, it does not set out very clearly what actions UKTI will take and how success based upon outcomes will be measured.

On that basis, may I ask the Minister a few questions about some of the tasks and actions that “Britain Open for Business” pledges? UKTI states that it will bring more private sector expertise into the strategic relationship management of major exporters and inward investors. That important point has been mentioned a number of times by hon. Members. Will the Minister update hon. Members on how that is progressing? Will he specifically outline how private sector expertise with that commercial know-how is being brought into the business?

Similarly, UKTI strategy has stated that a new private sector delivery partner operating in England outside London will be tasked with bringing in high-quality inward investment projects. Will the Minister say what the latest is on that and what progress has been made? UKTI has also pledged to develop new partnerships with key businesses that support SMEs, trying to tap into their networks to raise awareness of the benefits of exports. Time and again today we have heard about the huge importance of the chambers of commerce and about the excellence that sector-led trade associations can provide in batting for British companies outside the UK. What is being done to exploit that great expertise more? How will that be evaluated, and what progress is being made?

UKTI has pledged to create a new online self-help community for UK SME exporters to provide business-to-business support, advice and mentoring. Again, will the Minister update hon. Members on that? With regards to the document, will the Minister tell us about the high value opportunities programme? How successful has that been and can he identify specific export opportunities that have been realised as a direct result of that initiative?

Let me turn to the cuts, which have been mentioned a number of times, not least by the Chair of the Select Committee. UKTI faces a cut of around 17% over the next few years. In contrast, its French equivalent has had an increase in its budget of 14.2% in 2011 to €105 million. Germany Trade and Invest had a budget increase of 10%.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Prisk]

I am not quite sure about the manoeuvre the hon. Gentleman described, or how graceful it would be. What I can say is that there was a discussion on whether Birmingham city council should lead in this field, as part of the LEP. That delayed it by six or eight weeks. We wanted to ensure that we did not just do something from Whitehall and ignore that local expertise. It has now agreed to take on a core of the initiative and will be able to mount something very shortly. There has been a little delay, which I think is rightly because the idea of the supply chain, particularly in the automotive industry, came from Birmingham. I did not want—I suspect that the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) would haul me over the coals if I did—to sweep past a really good west midlands proposal just to ensure that we delivered on a set time frame. We are about six to eight weeks behind where I would like us to be, but we will be in a position to develop it shortly. It is part of a bigger picture, which is a broader figure of approximately £125 million. The delivery of the automotive supply chain package is imminent, but the hon. Member for Hartlepool is right to make sure that we keep to a sensible time frame.

I am aware of time, and I must give my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet time to respond before the debate ends. I will turn to how we measure effectiveness and then go on to some of the specific points that have been raised by right hon. and hon. Members.

It is fair to have balance, and, rightly, criticisms have been raised. That is fine—I take those criticisms as a constructive process. UKTI is a successful and often well regarded agency when compared with its competitors abroad. I use the word “competitors”, because that has to be the mindset of Ministers and Departments. In 2010, UKTI won the prize for the best trade promotion organisation in the developed world. However, as several hon. Members have pointed out, UKTI can only succeed when it works in a leadership role and works with others. That is a really important point that has come out of the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds mentioned chambers, which he has rightly championed for a long time. Chambers are a part of a number of private sector consortia that are delivering foreign direct investment. To confirm where and how at this point, they deliver for UKTI in the north-west, the west midlands, the south-west and, soon, in the north-east. The delivery partner that UKTI operates in the east midlands is in fact owned by the local chambers, which I think is good.

My hon. Friend has been a keen supporter of the Council of British Chambers of Commerce in Europe and has seen its work. A memorandum of understanding was signed just last month which will enable it to be part of the service delivery overseas. That is a very good way to move ahead. The idea that somehow the Government are all-seeing and all-powerful, and that any one agency has all the networks that we need to tap into, is mistaken—getting that breadth is important.

On how we measure the fitness or capability of the agency, the danger is that we will get into which survey says what and when it was cast. The hon. Member for Brent North flagged up the National Audit Office report. My understanding was that those were the 2009-10 survey figures. Clearly, we need to move ahead from them, but I understand the point he is making and I do not dismiss it. UKTI has tried to get an independent assessment of the people who use the service. What is their independent view of the quality of that service? Without going into great detail about how the survey is undertaken, the key point is to receive feedback on the satisfaction, or otherwise, of the service. What difference—this is important—has UKTI made to the company? In particular, what added value has it generated?

The figures up to 2011, if I can update the House, from the most recent study—clearly, the 2012 survey is in hand now—demonstrate that 70% of companies report significant business benefits. Some 75% of companies were satisfied or very satisfied with their overall experience with UKTI. I am not putting those figures on the record to say that we do not need to worry about the situation, even though a much smaller proportion, I think 7%, were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with UKTI. In my book, that is useful and helpful, but we also need to listen to the experiences of real businesses, and today’s contributions have been very helpful. For example, my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) mentioned a couple of businesses—Tudor Rose was one, if I wrote that down correctly. Those are good stories, but we need to hear from hon. Members when there are weak stories. I am keen to find out where the weaknesses are. Sometimes the business itself might get the wrong end of the stick, but other times we need to make sure that we have that channel. I therefore encourage hon. Members to make sure that that is fed through to UKTI, because it is important.

On what we can do to change the strategy, structure, calibre and so on—good points raised by a number of hon. Members—Lord Green has set out an ambitious programme for increasing the number of small and medium-size enterprises that export. We want to get up to the European average of 25%. The proportion is below the European average, a point raised by several hon. Members. In practice, that means getting an extra 100,000 SMEs exporting by 2020—that is the benchmark. Lord Green and the new chief executive, Nick Baird, who came into office in September, have set about making important changes that respond to some of the specific points raised by a number of hon. Members.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet is absolutely right about SMEs, particularly with regard to her micro argument. In an age when a start-up business on a laptop in a back bedroom has the capability of being a global business from day one—which was certainly not the case when I started my business, like my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North, in 1989—we need to think about where Government intervention needs to sit in terms of quality, and, frankly, there are a lot of very good commercial services that the Government do not need to duplicate. That thinking is important and that is a good point, which I will flag up with Lord Green myself.

I have said that UKTI is making changes. What are they in practice? First, it is bringing in private sector expertise—this alludes particularly to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith)—into the senior leadership of UKTI. As we have already heard, it has already outsourced the inward investment services, creating, through PA Consulting, a coherent investment service right across the English regions outside of London. Those teams have incentives built in to their contracts to bring new projects to our shores. In other words, it is moving towards being outcome based—if not as ideally as we would always have in the private sector, then much closer to that—rather than, necessarily, what I would describe as the conventional salaried model.

I would like to pick up on a couple of points that have been raised on the regional development agencies, UKTI and LEPs. One of my problems with the RDAs was that, when I went to Shanghai, I discovered that UKTI had its own operations running very positively, but there were eight separate independent trade organisations—all fully funded, all competing with each other, and all in Shanghai—from the eight RDAs outside London. To my mind, that was bonkers. There needs to be a clear, co-ordinated UK presence, while making sure that, within the UK, communication is strong. Removing the RDA layer—for many other reasons beyond this one—helps us to co-ordinate or focus the effort on UKTI—a single, clear UK message. Then what is needed is to ensure that there are proper links to the grass roots. That means working with the devolved Administrations and having a proper understanding with the LEPs in England. That is where we are. We have memorandums of understanding in place, which are crucial because they allow a strong UK voice. If Kent or Essex wish to do their own thing, that is fine, but let us co-ordinate and work together. That is an important shift.

[Mr Bailey]

I accept the Minister’s point about the duplication of effort of RDAs—an issue highlighted in previous BIS reports—but I am not totally convinced that the best way of dealing with that was to scrap the RDAs before having an alternative.

[Mr Prisk]

We have wound them down, although they still operate in technical terms, as the hon. Gentleman knows, until 1 April. We have tried to wind the RDAs down while building the LEPs up. The key point is that, in trade terms, we have made sure that UKTI is in the saddle, rather than having nine horses running consecutively, if I can say that during Cheltenham week. That was the important point, because there was a danger.

A German business in Shanghai told me, “Look, I’m confused. Two agencies have come to me. One says they do wonderful things in Coventry, the other says they do wonderful things in Leicester. Frankly, I can’t spot the difference between the two. Why am I being sold competing bids?” That is a good point. Co-ordination is crucial.

The second change that Mr Baird and the noble Lord Green have made is that, from April, there will be incentivised contracts for the private sector to deliver trade support in the English regions. On the sales culture, which several hon. Members mentioned, those two things—getting private sector into the business and moving towards incentivised contracts —will make a significant difference.

Hon. Members raised a couple of broader issues about how we deal with trade as a Government. That is a good point. Right from the start, the Prime Minister made it clear that there would be a trade Minister, and we have an excellent trade Minister in Stephen Green. All of us must regard our role as part of the trade and investment portfolio. That is why more than 400 separate ministerial engagements have been undertaken by Ministers from all Departments—I have a feeling that that even extends to the Department for Work and Pensions—because it is important that, when we go abroad, we are part of a trade mission. That is my background and, I am happy to say, that of most of my ministerial colleagues.

That is why today, for example, the Prime Minister is in New York, having had his business dinner at the White House yesterday with UK and American businesses, building on those contacts—if that answers the hon. Gentleman’s question. That is why the Foreign Secretary said, right at the beginning of this Government, that we want to put commerce right at the heart of what the Foreign and Commonwealth Office does, in collaboration with BIS and others, including UKTI, because we need to change the culture that says that the diplomatic role does not sully its hands with the process of commerce. That is fundamental. We are, as I said at the beginning, a trading nation. It is in our blood. Therefore, getting that change is important.

On the calibre, selection and recruitment of individuals—I am married to a classicist, so I need to be careful about what I say next—we need to ensure that there is the broadest recruitment possible, which is why the private sector infusion is important. I am a great believer in a greater interplay between private and public, which is why, when I started in my role, I said to the team dealing with small businesses, for example, “Let us spend a working week in a small business.” Obviously, I had done it before professionally, but it was crucial for the civil servants to understand what it was to be in a commercial environment, especially in a small business, which does not only have to get the business, but has to do the business and fill in the VAT form on a Sunday afternoon, as I recall.

Hon. Members mentioned being more French. I put it that way because, as hon. Members have correctly put it, it is about moving away from Ministers only attending events to cut ribbons once the deal is done. If we do that, it is too late. I tried to get the point across during my few months covering this role at the beginning of the Government, before Stephen Green was able to join us—it was worth the wait to get the right calibre of individual—that it is no good Ministers rolling up when the deal is done; we have to be there building the relationship. That is what Business Buddies is all about. Part of my role is ensuring that I have an ongoing strong relationship with many major automotive businesses. That is fundamental. Such relationships are crucial because, as the French have learned and known for many years, the deal comes at the end of building such a relationship, not at the beginning. That is why the process, of which UKTI is a fundamental part, reaches across the whole of Government, ensuring that Ministers, from the Prime Minister downwards, are involved.

Let me wrap up, because the hon. Member for South Thanet needs to respond to the debate; that is the courtesy of this House. The noble Lord Green rightly said at the start—he is wise and right about this—that changing the way our trade balance operates is not a sprint but a marathon. That means, not that we want to ensure that we are going at a good pace but that, if we are to change the industrial strategy and the way we deliver inward investment and the operation and communication of exports, and so on, we must ensure that we get this right. It is true that, although there are strengths in the current system, we have inherited a number of weaknesses and we are trying to iron those out. Personally—this is also the view of my ministerial colleagues—I welcome constructive criticism and ideas and want to ensure that those will be fed through, both to the organisation and to the Minister responsible in the next few days.