British Exports

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Wednesday 8th February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)]

I had hoped to be called earlier, Mr Turner, by currying favour with you on the basis that I was at college with you some 35 years ago, but I was disappointed. However, I am delighted to be called now.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) on securing this interesting debate. I shall keep my comments to two points, because we are short of time.

On the export market generally, on the face of it, our performance is not as bad as it appears. For example, our exports as a percentage of GDP, if invisibles are included, are much the same as France’s and Germany’s. The 2010 figures, according to the Library, show us at 29% of GDP, Italy at 27% and France at 25%. However, those figures are just the surface, beneath which we have a culture in this country, developed over many years, which means that many young people do not even consider going into business, let alone the export sector. There have been other debates, both here and in other parts of the Palace of Westminster, about that culture, and I believe that part of the problem is cultural.

I am sure that if I were to go to the equivalent of a Watfordian sixth form in Germany and ask, “Who wants either to go into their family business or to start up a business?” the number of young people answering, “It’s business for me,” particularly with exports in mind, would be significantly higher than in Britain. Very few of our contemporaries at Oxford, Mr Turner, went into business, and I am sure that very few people nowadays even think about that. At university, people are pushed towards professions and careers such as ours—to which I am a recent recruit, in later life—which, good or bad, certainly do not benefit the economy or assist growth in the rest of the country in the same way as being in a business, particularly an export-led one, does. The issue is very much a cultural one.

One learns to take things as one finds them, and in my travels, both in my constituency and abroad, I have found UKTI to be of almost no help whatsoever to prospective exporters. I will give just one example, because time is limited. A few weeks ago I was asked to go to Mainz, a town in Germany that is twinned with Watford—obviously Watford in many ways is far superior to Mainz, or to anywhere else in the world, but for some reason it is twinned with it. I spoke there at an inward investment conference about investment in Hertfordshire. I was very embarrassed that the UKTI rep in Mainz—which is obviously not in the middle of Africa—did not even speak German. I found that absolutely appalling. When I questioned Lord Green, for example, at a recent Conservative China group breakfast, he could not even say what exports we make to China.

Whatever the Government say, there is no real hardcore business culture in this country as far as exports are concerned. Yes, everyone tries—politicians, the previous Government, this Government. The Foreign Secretary makes speeches saying that we are going to turn the Foreign Office into an organisation that supports business. It is nonsense. On recent visits to five African countries with the International Development Committee, I asked the ambassadors who the main importers into those countries from Britain were, and they did not know. Our ambassador to Burundi, which is a small country with a very small population, said that there was almost no British trade there, and so I had to tell him that one of my constituents, who is also a friend, exported products there. The culture exists in the minds of politicians and some other people, but the reality is very different. People do very well in business in this country without even considering exports. Exporting is not part of the culture. I accept the points that Members have made about the credit and equity gaps, and about financing. That is all well and good, but there is no burning desire to export. The view is it is very difficult, and hard to make money out of—it is just not in our psyche.

There are exceptions. My good friend and fellow Watfordian, Dr Rami Ranger, has a business called Sun Mark Ltd, which exports to 160 countries. Despite all the talk of our lack of efforts in the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India and China—he has recently exported his Bullet energy drink to such countries as Venezuela, Honduras, Belize and Surinam. He is the Burundi man, the Rwanda man—he exports to 160 countries. He has not even heard of UKTI. He does not need to go to seminars held by Lord Green, or anything like that, because he is someone of Indian origin who thinks internationally and is used to driving for business and exports, despite the obstacles put in his way by the 50% tax, national insurance and everything else. He is loyal to this country. He could locate his company anywhere in the world but he has it in Britain, and we need a lot more of that kind of thing.

Our international development efforts are very commendable, and are supported by both sides of the House, but because of tied aid, which used to be something whereby arms were sold from countries that gave aid, there is a fear on the part of the Department for International Development of getting British companies involved in its activities, when there are perfectly benign contracts all over the world for cars, agricultural products and so on—so many worthy things. I am sure that it is against European law to show favouritism to British companies, and it would not be the right thing to do, but there is no mechanism whereby our companies are informed, encouraged and invited to tender. Why do we buy 100 Toyota Land Cruisers in Africa, without even pushing British companies to bid?

Everywhere we go with the International Development Committee—other members of the Committee are here today—we see so much money being spent. I am not saying that we should have favouritism, but there is no real feeling that this is British taxpayers’ money, and we have to try to help British companies, providing the objective is right, that money is not spent where it should not be, and that it is not more expensive. These things have to link together, and that is what I ask the Minister to consider—it is what the Government should be doing. We are proud of our international development efforts, but they should be linked to trade in the nicest possible way.