Commonwealth: Trade

Debate between Jake Berry and Oliver Colvile

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jake Berry]

I believe we can do a trade deal with Canada. The whole country was recently united in shouting “Where on earth is Wallonia?” That shows that the European approach to negotiating trade deals is wrong—I will come on to how the Government can set out a better approach than the EU-Canada trade deal. Canada has indicated that it wants a trade deal with Britain.

The Commonwealth’s GDP does not match the EU’s, which is some $16 trillion. However, the EU’s growth rate has averaged only 1.7%, while the Commonwealth’s is currently more than 4%. As Britain prepares to leave the European Union, it is with the Commonwealth—our extraordinary family of nations—that we should seek to strike trade deals. A recent report on the Commonwealth states that on average it is 19% cheaper for businesses in the Commonwealth to do trade, because of our common legal systems, language and culture. The Commonwealth and its nations represent a growing and increasingly important market for Britain; Britain, in turn, represents the fifth largest economy in the world and a gateway into Europe for Commonwealth nations.

When it comes to trade deals, we in this country have a lot to learn from our Commonwealth partners, which are blazing a trail for free trade among themselves. Australia already has a free trade agreement with New Zealand and is negotiating a free trade deal with India, and both Australia and New Zealand are parties to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations deal. Britain should seek to emulate such trade deals. Unlike the EU, Australia and other Commonwealth partners have not made the perfect the enemy of the good. In many cases, they have opted for a sectoral approach. They are prepared to sign multiple trade deals—the one between Australia and Singapore is an example—and when areas of co-operation are agreed, they sign a trade deal about those areas and put the more divisive areas to one side. We should compare that with the eight years that it has taken the EU to negotiate with Canada.

I hope that at the Commonwealth Trade Ministers meeting next month the Minister and his Department will seek to start negotiations with Canada, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia and New Zealand, which are large, open economies.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that we should also consider trade deals in southern Africa, which is very much dependent on agricultural economies, and specifically in Malawi, which is dependent on tobacco, to deliver cheaper food for our constituents?

[Jake Berry]

The issue of agriculture and Commonwealth trade is quite tricky to tackle. South Africa has said that it would like to sign a trade deal with Britain the day after Brexit—it is unfortunate that it cannot be signed the day before, but the day after would be very welcome.

I hope that the Minister will initiate talks with the large, open economies. They should be a key negotiating priority for Britain; indeed, several of them have already indicated an interest in exploring trade deals. New Zealand has reportedly even offered to help Britain by providing trade negotiators to assist the Minister and his Department.

We also need to open trade deal talks with India. That will be a huge challenge for the Minister and his Department, but we will be helped significantly by the Indian diaspora of 1.4 million people, which creates strong cultural ties between our nations, and by the fact that India is currently the UK’s largest export market in the Commonwealth. A recent Commonwealth study estimated that a UK-India free trade agreement would increase two-way trade by 26% and predicted that UK exports to India could increase by 50% every year. I hope that all hon. Members can see that that would be a huge prize, not only for Britain but for India. The Government must make it a priority next month.

Pharmacies and Integrated Healthcare: England

Debate between Jake Berry and Oliver Colvile

Wednesday 11th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Oliver Colvile]

rose—

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

rose—

Royal Yacht Britannia: International Trade

Debate between Jake Berry and Oliver Colvile

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the reintroduction of the Royal Yacht Britannia for the purpose of international trade.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope, for what I think is the first time, in this important debate. We have to ask ourselves what sort of Britain we want to live in and what we in this Parliament can do to try to make Britain great again. On 23 June, the British public said that they wanted to take back control, be independent of the European Union, stand tall in the world again and project our power and influence around the globe as an independent nation.

The Government’s interpretation of that has been put forward as “Brexit means Brexit.” I believe that if Brexit is to mean successful Brexit, it should also mean the return of our royal yacht. Today, I want to set out the case for the renewal of the royal yacht, which is both economic and patriotic and, crucially, would be at low cost, if not no cost, to the taxpayer.

Since I launched the campaign, I have been supported by Ministers past and present, 100 colleagues on the Government Benches, The Sun, the Daily Mail, The Times, the Sunday Express and, most vociferously of all, Christopher Hope of The Daily Telegraph. That support is welcome and has been crucial in making today’s debate a success. However, the most moving and compelling arguments have been made not by newspapers or colleagues but by the hundreds of members of the public who have written or emailed me comments and suggestions of support. Some have gone as far as sending me cheques, and some have even offered to give up their winter fuel allowance this year to pay for a new royal yacht. Those hundreds of selfless acts and offers of help from the public are a demonstration of a proud nation, eager to support our royal family; a nation with hope and pride for our future. The British public have realised—perhaps before politicians—that a royal yacht is not some sepia-tinted look back to the 1950s, but about the Britain that their children, and indeed their grandchildren, will inhabit.

It will not surprise colleagues to hear that not all of the correspondence has been positive or supportive. I want to deal here and now, at the start of the debate, with those who seek to rubbish the idea of a new royal yacht and the contribution that our royal family can make to Great Britain and her future.

Our head of state is an inspirational leader who can represent our United Kingdom in a way that no other global leader can match. Over 60 years, she has met 4 million people in person, equivalent to the population of New Zealand. She is Queen of 16 countries and has travelled more widely than any other head of state in history. One of her greatest achievements has been to build our Commonwealth from eight members in 1952 to the 54 of today.

The Commonwealth represents a unique family of nations spanning every continent and global religion and covering nearly a third of the world’s population. Our Commonwealth is rightly the envy of the world, and in the years ahead this international body will be of growing importance and influence to the UK and its economy as we grow and succeed outside the European Union. A royal yacht is crucial to the leader of our Commonwealth. When launching Britannia on the Clyde in 1953, she said:

“My father felt most strongly, as I do, that a yacht was a necessity, and not a luxury for the head of the British Commonwealth, between whose countries the sea is no barrier, but the natural highway.”

Britain has the fifth largest economy in the world and remains the third largest maritime power. We as a nation have a unique history in connection with the sea. As an island race, our relationship with the sea is written into our DNA. The relationship has been represented on behalf of our nation, both symbolically and in actuality, by a history of royal yachts stretching back to the restoration of the monarchy with Charles II. We are foolish to have turned our back on the sea and all that it represents for our nation through our failure to renew the royal yacht Britannia in 1997.

I believe that Britain as a nation is partly blind to the perception around the globe of all that she represents. Our country, and in particular our royal family, have an unmatchable global reach. President Barack Obama, speaking at the funeral of President Shimon Peres recently, described our Queen as one of the

“giants of the 20th century that I have had the honour to meet”.

In a post-Brexit Britain, we need our head of state now more than ever. She can uniquely portray a positive role for our nation around the globe, and a new royal yacht is vital in her doing that.

A royal yacht, unlike our recently acquired state plane, is a small piece of Britain that can move from international port to international port, showing the soft power and prestige of our nation. It is a floating royal palace that can be used to host meetings as a platform for our humanitarian mission around the globe, and a showcase for the best of British industry. No other country, if presented with such an opportunity, would have squandered it away in the court of public opinion and envy, as happened in 1997 with the decommissioning of the royal yacht Britannia.

It is true that the role of the royal yacht changed since its introduction with Charles II. I would like to concentrate on the contribution that Britannia made to trade at the end of her service. Britannia was decommissioned in 1997 after more than 40 years in service. She conducted 968 official visits and clocked up more than a million miles at sea. In her later years—between 1991 and 1995—she is estimated to have brought £3 billion of commercial trade deals to our country. In 1993, on one trip to India alone, £1.3 billion of trade deals were signed. It is acknowledged that those deals would have been signed in any event, but the presence of Britannia sped up the negotiations from years to days. To put that into the context of the renewal and running of a royal yacht, the deal signed on that one trip would have paid for a royal yacht in its entirety and its annual running costs for 100 years.

During those commercially profitable years, Britannia hosted business figures from across the globe on what were called sea days, on which opportunities were discussed and trade agreements struck. Sea days took place around the coast of Britain and abroad, and were always organised to coincide with an official visit by Britannia. The prestige associated with Britannia attracted prominent figures from commerce and industry to attend the sea days. Invitations were sent in the name of Her Majesty the Queen, with key decision makers in global companies targeted. On occasion, a member of the royal family would also attend. A royal invitation to conduct business on the most exclusive yacht in the world was impossible for even the most successful businesspeople to resist. It is my view that a renewed royal yacht could be used in just that way today.

Hon. Members do not have to take my word for that—they can take the word of Henry Catto, who was the US ambassador to the Court of St James’s between 1989 and 1991. He found himself in the lucky position of being chief of protocol in 1976 when Her Majesty the Queen visited America. He wrote in his book:

“I was literally besieged with people wanting invitations to the various functions on board. Corporate moguls would devise the most outlandish reasons as to why they should be invited; society matrons would throw themselves at me”—

Members are listening now.

“In short, that ship was a superb tool for British industry and the British nation and to let her go and not replace her would be a great pity”.

Compare that with Barack Obama’s comments that the UK would be at the back of the queue in any trade deal with the United States. That shows the huge contribution a new royal yacht could make: we could go from the back of the queue to the front, just by using the power, prestige and global influence of our royal family.

Until now, the European Commission has been responsible for negotiating international trade deals on behalf of EU member states, meaning that the United Kingdom has not had a dedicated team of trade negotiators since 1973. The Minister, who is new in his Department, will acknowledge that negotiating British trade abroad is a huge task, but it would be made significantly easier, in my view, by the royal yacht and by the presence of our royal family.

I hope that I have made the case for the return of the royal yacht for the purposes of trade and explained the role it can play for Britain, but I also want to talk about what I believe a future royal yacht should look like and, crucially, how it should be funded. There are some basic rules we must follow. It must belong to the state, it must fly the white ensign and it must have a strong connection with our royal family. It has to belong to the state so it has the benefit of diplomatic immunity when it visits international harbours around the globe; it has to fly the white ensign, because it is crucial that it is crewed by our Royal Navy; and it has to have a strong connection with our royal family, as that is the unique quality that will make its service to our nation succeed.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Is it correct that the old royal yacht Britannia was actually a hospital ship that was used during the course of conflict, and that it was able to make a major contribution in helping our sick and injured servicemen and women?

[Jake Berry]

That is absolutely correct. I propose that any new royal yacht would again offer a multitude of services, whether as a trade envoy, a hospital ship or a research and development vessel for our science and industry.

There are several proposals for what type of ship we should build, as well as proposals to recommission the existing royal yacht Britannia, which stands proudly in Leith docks. They should all be explored, but I will talk about my personal preference, which is to build a new royal yacht along the lines of the proposals put to the Government in the 1990s. The future royal yacht project envisaged a new ship that would be slightly smaller than Britannia but similar in design. Crucially, it would have an increased range and a much-reduced crewing requirement and would be much cheaper to run. It has been estimated that the ship would cost about £100 million to construct and could be funded either through private donations—for example, by giving industry naming rights for certain decks and rooms—through a private finance initiative model or through public fundraising.

The final idea of the future royal yacht commission was that the Bibby shipping line would construct a new royal yacht, with the Government putting no money whatever toward its construction. The Government would then use it on a bareboat charter basis for 12 years at an estimated cost of £7 million a year. After the initial 12 years’ use had expired, the yacht would become the property of our nation. While those charter figures are historical and may be out of date, I believe that the different ideas out there about how the yacht could be funded show that there are many ways in which we could commission a royal yacht with no up-front cost to the taxpayer.

The reason why I believe a new royal yacht is preferable to recommissioning the existing royal yacht Britannia is that such a vessel is about our country’s future, not its past. It should be a shop window for what is best about British shipbuilding. I imagine the engines might be provided by Rolls-Royce or Perkins, while the hull would be constructed using British steel in a British shipyard. The IT and communications system would be the best that Silicon roundabout in London could offer. It would be a thoroughly modern ship, reflecting a modern nation and a modern monarchy that is willing and able to serve Britain across the globe.

Today’s debate is an opportunity to show that a new royal yacht commands significant public support. British industry is already calling for the opportunity to showcase its world-beating ingenuity and engineering talent across the globe. Financial backers have come forward with ideas about how the royal yacht could be paid for, and more than 100 Members have signed a letter, published in The Daily Telegraph, calling on the Government to set up a commission to look at what service a royal yacht could provide our nation.

The people backing the campaign are not self-interested or driven by preferment. They want to make the dream of a new royal yacht a reality, and they offer their service to our nation without hesitation. That is why I hope the Minister will agree to set up a Government commission to carry out a full cost-benefit analysis of the contribution that a new royal yacht could make to our nation. That commission would act as a rallying point for all those who are interested in the project. It would be a place for people to offer their help and expertise and a place for those who are willing to make a significant financial contribution to try to make this happen.

In the long history of the Government’s involvement with the renewal of the royal yacht, offers of help have all too often gone unanswered. Expertise has been lost and opportunity upon opportunity has been missed. Brexit is a new chapter in our nation’s story, and I hope that the Government will be able to match the hope and optimism demonstrated by its people.