Overseas Aid (Private Sector Contracts)

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend will not be surprised to hear that this issue was raised after my speech in this morning’s question and answer session, and it is an incredibly powerful one. I believe that this country has more natural links to many of these developing economies than almost any other country in the world. We should be making the most of those and allowing our diasporas also to be part of helping the countries to which they have family links to develop.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Trade with the developing world was an insufficient priority of the previous Administration, yet it is economic dynamism, not dependency, that our development spend should be seeking to encourage. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her speech. Does she agree that British education companies have a key role to play in developing the economic strength of developing countries, which will be good both for them and for us?

[Justine Greening]

I do agree and, for example, we are talking with Pearson about how we can work more closely with it in places such as Pakistan. A number of sectors in our country’s economy have real value to add. We have talked a lot about retail today, but education is yet another sector where we have so much knowledge and so many skills. We can pass those things on to developing economies, and it is in everybody’s interests to do so.