Foreign Affairs and International Development

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Britain’s foreign policy can be summed up in two words: unsplendid isolation. The Foreign Secretary is an observer of world events, rather than a shaper of them. He talked about new embassies being opened, but they will not be staffed by trained British diplomats who come back here after a short term abroad as a young diplomat to help inform our community of foreign policy. Instead, we now have portakabin foreign policy, with small sheds being opened all over the world, but without augmenting our foreign presence. The number of diplomatic posts staffed by British citizens is being cut by up to 250 as a result of the Foreign Secretary’s personnel policies.

The Foreign Secretary set out his world vision in an interview with The Economist last week. It is based on promoting trade, promoting the broad national interest and protecting British citizens overseas, as he confirmed in his speech earlier. I expect that every holder of his great office from Charles James Fox onward would subscribe to those aims. Every one of Her Majesty’s ambassadors promotes trade, but to do so we need an economy that is growing, open and supported by Ministers. Instead, the Foreign Secretary insulted every exporter over the weekend by telling them to work hard. My business friends in his home town of Rotherham, which I have the honour of representing, have worked harder than any generation of business leaders in our history. They do not need to be patronised and told to work hard. What they need is support so that the cuts to the UK trade promotion work, which Lord Digby Jones discussed with the BBC yesterday, are reversed, because every day that the Foreign Secretary has been in office has seen Britain’s trade balance worsen.

The Foreign Secretary makes much of the idea that Britain can turn away from our traditional trading partners and engage with emerging powers, yet we export more to Ireland than we do to China, Russia, India and Brazil combined. He is the leader of the Eurosceptic faction in the Cabinet and never misses an opportunity to make a crack about the EU or the problems of the eurozone, as if the double-dip recession pound zone were an example to follow.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that exports of goods to non-EU countries have increased by almost 30% over the past two years?

[Mr MacShane]

I will be moving on to that.

Our exports to Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain—the so-called PIGS countries—amount to more than 10% of our exports, compared with just 0.7% to Brazil or 1.4% to India, to which even Belgium exports more than we do. In short, the concept of replacing our friends and allies in the Euro-Atlantic trading region with the new so-called emerging powers is not paying off, as the Indian decision to buy French war planes rather than British ones and the view of Indian politicians that they no longer want or need aid from London demonstrate.

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[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

At a time of great difficulty, it is always tempting to look inwards. However, it is now more important than ever to look outwards, because it is by engaging constructively with the world that we will see growth in our economy and security for our people, and help others to tackle grinding poverty and the effects of climate change. I therefore welcome the Government’s focus on exports, on inward and outward investment, on expanding the UK’s diplomatic network—I should like to echo the praise for the work of our diplomatic missions around the world—and on well-targeted development aid.

Figures released today show that UK exports—that is, exports of goods and services combined—have increased by 17% since March 2010 to £41.8 billion. Significantly, exports of goods to non-EU countries have risen from £10.8 billion in September 2010 to £13.1 billion in March this year. Almost all the recent increase involves exports of goods to non-EU countries. It is worth pointing out that six of the 10 fastest growing countries in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa—many of them are members of the Commonwealth—and it is to those countries that we should look for our growth in the next two to three decades.

British companies have been working very hard against fierce competition, but we cannot rest there. Britain has a lower percentage of small and medium-sized enterprises involved in exports than our rivals, and we need to help those companies to compete across the globe. Export Credits Guarantee Department cover has improved since last year, but I would urge the Government to ensure that our companies have access to the same cover as that enjoyed by their competitors in Germany and the Netherlands. At the moment, we fall considerably short of that goal.

One factor that is not quantifiable but is nevertheless significant for the UK’s export performance is the UK’s diplomatic network. A recent article in The Economist stated:

“Diplomats have been told to focus on three objectives: defending national security, looking after British citizens abroad and—above all—boosting prosperity by promoting British business. If Britain moves quickly, it can be the first European country to spot the vital need for long-haul, bilateral diplomacy, Mr Hague suggests.”

The Foreign Secretary is right. Too often, we have been complacent or slow off the mark, and lost traditional markets or failed to take the new opportunities, yet Britain is opening eight new embassies in Asia by 2015, at a time when others are cutting back, and despite a smaller budget.

[Meg Munn]

Is not the hon. Gentleman illustrating the fact that there is quite a narrow focus on international issues? As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) said, there is no overriding theme running through the Foreign Office. Surely our diplomatic efforts should be about more than just trade. Did not the Government come unstuck in that way before, when the Prime Minister went abroad to promote trade at a time when there were real problems in the middle east that needed to be addressed through a much wider diplomatic effort?

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I would take a slightly different view, having worked with the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development and served on the International Development Committee. I have seen a joined-up approach between DFID and the Foreign Office; more so than ever before. I also see Foreign Office Ministers taking such issues as human rights and the environment extremely seriously. Perhaps that has not come out in some of the debates so far, but my experience on the ground is slightly different from that of the hon. Lady.

Tackling the trade deficit is not just about increasing exports, however. It is also about doing more at home in areas where we have traditionally been large importers. Let us take food and drink as an example. The trade deficit in 2011 was £17.8 billion on food and drink alone. Ensuring that UK farmers have a fair deal from their customers would give a significant boost to agriculture and horticulture, creating many jobs in the process, which is why producers in my Stafford constituency welcome the legislation to establish an independent adjudicator between supermarkets and their suppliers.

In recent years, we have been told that the UK can no longer compete in standard manufacturing, and that we must concentrate on high value-added products. I disagree. It is not either/or; it is both/and. As wages rise in developing countries and as the cost of transport increases, there is an advantage in being close to our markets and not bringing everything in from the other side of the world.

That brings me to a subject that, as a Conservative, I perhaps should not raise—but I will. As a nation, we need to be prepared to identify strategic areas of business and to back them—not to the exclusion of common sense, but with more than warm words. Germany and France do that, and we can hardly say that their economies are less competitive than ours. As a result, state-backed—perhaps I should say “encouraged”—French and German companies have taken over swaths of British manufacturing and service industries. Many are good businesses that invest heavily in the UK—Alstom and Total are examples in my constituency—and they reap the rewards, but we do not see the reverse happening to nearly the same extent. Is it that our companies are less adventurous, or is it that they have lacked support and encouragement from successive UK Governments and face obstacles at the other end that the single market is supposed to prevent? Sometimes I think that there is a single market in the EU, and that that single market is the UK. I will believe otherwise when I see Severn Trent running the Paris water supply and Virgin Trains operating on Deutsche Bahn.

The UK’s role in helping with security in troubled areas is underplayed. Understandably, we concentrate on Afghanistan, where our forces—including the Tactical Supply Wing, the 22nd Signal Regiment and 3rd Battalion the Mercian Regiment from my area—have done so much in working for stability for the people of that country and to make our nation safer. However, trainers from the UK armed forces work in many other parts of the world. Recently, several colleagues and I were privileged to see the work of the British Peace Support Team in Kenya. The UK is also involved in training peacekeepers from the Ugandan and Burundian armies who are undertaking the vital and dangerous UN mission in Mogadishu. The question is often asked: what will our armed forces do once operations in Afghanistan are over? One of the answers is that they would do more of the training of peacekeepers, at which they excel. They are the best in the world.

The Gracious Speech states that the Government

“has set out firm plans to spend nought point seven per cent of gross national income as official development assistance from 2013. This will be the first time the United Kingdom has met this agreed international commitment.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 May 2012; Vol. 737, c. 3.]

As hon. Members have pointed out, that commitment has been around for 40 years, since the Pearson commission in the late 1960s. The UK’s aid programme makes a huge difference to the lives of millions. As the Prime Minister said:

“The last Session of Parliament also made an impact not just at home but around the world. We fed more than 2.5 million people facing famine and starvation, we supported over 5.5 million children to go to school in the poorest countries of our world and we immunised a child against diseases every 2.5 seconds of the last parliamentary Session.”—[Official Report, 9 May 2012; Vol. 545, c. 17.]

It is a privilege to serve on the International Development Committee under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), who I see in his place, and to see the effects of the good use of UK taxpayers’ money on the lives of the poorest: children able to study in classrooms for the first time, and deaths from malaria plummeting when UK Government money supplies bed nets, rapid diagnostic tests and artemesinin in combination drugs. This is a programme that looks to the future, helping growth in the private sector so that jobs are created and income generated, supporting tax authorities so that Government revenues grow and reduce the need for aid.

If I were to highlight one area that has been neglected over the years and is now more important than ever—my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) and the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) referred to it—it would be agriculture, in particular smallholder agriculture. We are seeing substantial investment in agriculture by large corporations across the developing world. Where this is done alongside and in co-operation with existing landowners, particularly the small ones, it can work very well, as I saw on recent visits to Zambia and Malawi, by increasing production, productivity and employment. Sadly, however, this is sometimes not the case, as we see examples of large land grabs that leave people destitute.

Some have expressed disappointment that the Queen’s Speech does not mention legislating for 0.7%. I have to say that I do not share their disappointment, as I am keen first of all to reach that amount by showing through action that we can achieve it. Perhaps we could legislate afterwards, having shown the way. What has become increasingly clear to me over the past two years on the International Development Committee is that what matters is that we keep our commitment to the amount, that it is well spent on the poorest and, most important of all, that the countries we are helping make every effort to reduce their dependence on aid. Countries such as Zambia and Rwanda have set out their clear intention to eliminate their need for aid. I welcome this and suggest that the Government ask this of every country we work with.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman mentioned land grabs, as a serious issue is at stake. Many of the poorest countries in Africa are seeing their land bought up in large amounts by Japan, China and a number of other countries, which grow food that is then exported straight away. This means we have the phenomenon of very poor people starving alongside bounteous crops. Can we do anything about that through our aid programme?

[Jeremy Lefroy]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, which concerns me greatly. I much prefer to see large companies working with smallholder farmers, allowing them to keep their land, perhaps leasing it off them for periods of time but with ownership being kept by the nationals. We need to look very seriously at this issue. I know that DFID does not engage in such activity and would not support it, but it is extremely important that we find out what can be done about it. I very much share the hon. Gentleman’s view on that.

Returning to the need to reduce dependence on aid, if a country sets out clearly how it intends to achieve this, it not only shows that the countries themselves are committed to growing their economies and their tax revenues, but gives the British people the confidence that development aid is a partnership with a clear goal.

With exports up, more embassies and other missions open, and a strong development aid programme, the UK is most certainly looking outwards. The key is to maintain this, not just through this Parliament, but for many years thereafter. In that way, Britain will continue to be a reliable partner in trade, in security and in the most vital work of helping the poorest in the world to a better future.

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[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), who in his short time in this place has brought the experience of his previous work into Parliament. I congratulate him on his speech.

As I wanted to speak in this debate, I had to cancel a meeting with the chief executive of a company just across the river. He sent me an e-mail saying that he hoped I would be called—he does not understand how long we wait to speak—and said, “Could you please encourage the Government to concentrate on growth and not constitutional waffle?” I thought that that was a rather nice way of summing up Lords reform and I hope that we will see sense on that matter and not go forward with any discussion on it at all. It is not something for which any of our constituents are clamouring.

The Gracious Speech included two Bills on the European Union that the Government intend to introduce in this Session and I want to say a quick word about them. Neither Bill is the Bill that the public want to see. We know that the public, like many Members of this House, want a Bill that allows a referendum on our future relationship with the European Union. The public will note that, despite the passage of the European Union Act 2011, the Government propose to pass legislation to approve the creation of the European stability mechanism and to prepare for Croatia to join the EU without a referendum. Many members of the public were told that we did not need an in/out referendum because the Government would put it into law that any changes to our relationship with the EU would have to be approved by them. We can now see that that promise is inadequate because we will not have any say.

It is surprising that the Government are introducing the Croatia accession Bill. Personally—this is a very personal view—I cannot understand why Croatia would want to join the EU, but if it does that is obviously a matter for it. The ongoing expansion of the EU across the continent, well away from the small set of countries it comprised when we joined, shows that the European project is still very much alive in the hearts of the Brussels elite, who are pushing still for deeper and wider union despite the ongoing economic disaster. I believe—and believe that the public would want to see this—that if we are to be asked to pool our national sovereignty with yet another country with the result that in time our voice and our vote count for less in the European Parliament, that changes our relationship and should lead to a referendum.

Preparations for the European stability mechanism might also be premature. Only today we have the meeting between the new President of France and the German Chancellor with the intention of amending the austerity pact which the euro countries signed up to last year. I welcome the fact that eurozone countries should pay to support other countries that are struggling under that currency, but as we wisely did not join, we should not have to contribute a penny. We have already given too much money to propping up the euro through the International Monetary Fund. I remind the Government that the public will not stand for that, as we have seen from the increasing votes for the UK Independence party.

I was disappointed that neither of the Front-Bench spokesmen—I might be mistaken, but I listened very carefully—mentioned the word Commonwealth. Yet that is an association of 54 independent states that work together in the common interests of their citizens for development, democracy and peace. We just need to contrast that with the European Union. The Commonwealth works to uphold democratic rights and nurture constitutional government and parliamentary accountability, whereas the European Union increasingly seeks to thwart and ride roughshod over the democratic will of citizens to such an extent that it wants to install unelected bureaucrats as Prime Ministers of countries.

It is terribly sad that we are not making much more use of the Commonwealth. Despite the size and economic entity of the Commonwealth, the UK Government never talk about it as a huge economic union. We talk about individual countries within it but what about the fact that it accounts for 15% of the world’s gross national income and contains more than 2 billion of the world’s 7 billion population? We have a special link in this year of Her Majesty’s diamond jubilee. As the head of the Commonwealth, she is passionately concerned about it and has done so much as a monarch to ensure its importance and to ensure that we remember what it has done. So although the Commonwealth contains 2 billion of the world’s 7 billion people, there was not a single mention of it in the Queen’s Speech or, more importantly, tonight.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

Will the hon. Lady acknowledge that many countries that do not have traditional links with Britain are seeking to join the Commonwealth? Rwanda is already a member, as is Mozambique, and countries such as Burundi want to forge links with the Commonwealth.

[Kate Hoey]

Absolutely, and that shows the strength and power of the relationship, which does not bind countries into a centralised you-will-all-do-the-same-thing approach but welcomes and supports them as individual countries. Let us not forget that the Commonwealth’s membership includes two of the world’s largest 10 economies—the UK and India—and two members of the G7: Canada and the UK. It also includes five members of the G20: the UK, India, Canada, Australia and South Africa. It has huge global significance and huge potential and also has the advantage of being a group of countries that are friendly, in most cases, including many with deep reserves of key natural resources. It is absolutely disgraceful that we in the United Kingdom are not seeing the Commonwealth as somewhere to which we should be reaching out. Ultimately, we should be establishing a Commonwealth free trade area. That would, of course, mean examining our relationship with the European Union, but our relationship with some of the large Commonwealth countries will be much more important in the long term. I therefore ask the Minister to mention the word Commonwealth in his response and say something about it just to show the Commonwealth countries that we care and that in this year of the diamond jubilee Her Majesty and this Parliament consider the Commonwealth to be worthy of discussion.

Having been quite critical, let me now say something nice about the International Development Secretary. The Department for International Development has been doing a very good job indeed and I want to mention in particular the work it has been doing in Zimbabwe, which has been terrifically important and useful. This covers so many of the issues that other Members have been discussing such as getting books into schools and has been a terrific opportunity for us to be sure that we are doing our bit for the education of children in what was once a fantastically well-educated country, despite all the issues there. I hope that until there are free and fair elections there we will continue to do our bit to ensure that primary schoolchildren have the opportunity to read and have an education.

I was very moved by the speeches of my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock) and particularly of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), who I know had another engagement to attend. I, too, was at St Paul’s yesterday to hear the Dalai Lama. I am a member of the all-party group on Tibet and I was very disappointed that although the thousands of Chinese students in this country were mentioned in the Government’s introduction to the debate, not a word was said about the Chinese Government’s human rights record and the appalling way they have treated not only the Tibetans but people in many other parts of China. The difference between what my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford said about Palestine and the terrible things she saw and what my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East said about Tibet is that at least the media can still get access to the refugee camps and Palestine. Yes, that is difficult but they and parliamentary delegations can get in, whereas it is incredibly difficult to get into Tibet these days. It has become a closed country to anyone who is not seen as absolutely supporting the Chinese regime.

Our Government should be speaking out more about this issue. We should be forming alliances with other countries and not allowing China to get away with what it is doing just because it is such a huge and economically powerful country.

When China was selected to host the Olympics, everyone said, “It’s going to make such a difference. China is going to change. It will change its human rights record and start freeing prisoners.” Have we seen any changes in China since the Beijing Olympics? I have seen nothing that has made a difference, and the fact that the Olympics were held there has certainly not made any difference to the brave Tibetans who are trying so desperately not just to have a free Tibet, but to be allowed to practise their culture and their religion. What has been happening there is shocking, and I hope that the Minister will make some reference to that.

Our Government have done some very good things through their foreign policy. I am delighted that they are opening up some of our embassies in parts of the world that were closed. I am pleased that they have made a decision that the UK flag must take precedence over the European Union flag. That is just a tiny little change, but it is very important and I welcome it. I pay tribute to our many ambassadors all over the world who do such a good job, trying to ensure that the United Kingdom’s voice is heard in those countries and that we stand up for the values that this country represents.

Finally, please, please would Ministers and shadow Ministers stop referring to Britain, Britain, Britain? We are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. If I hear the Prime Minister say once more, “Britain is this” and “Britain is that”, I am going to get very cross indeed. We are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Britain excludes Northern Ireland; Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom.