12 May 2009
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown calls for the UK to improve its trade and investment representation in India's fast-growing second tier cities.
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold) (Con): I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Sheridan. I congratulate you on your participation in the Chairmen’s Panel. I believe that this is the first event that you have chaired. It is a delight to follow the hon. Member for Eccles (Ian Stewart). I hope that he will find a way to continue to serve in the House after his seat is abolished at the next election; it would be a great loss to the House if he did not.
I have limited time and will start by describing a conversation I had with an unknown lady on the way to India. She attacked me verbally saying, “Why is this parliamentary delegation going to India? Is it not just a junket and a waste of taxpayers’ money?” When I assured her that it was not costing her anything as a taxpayer and that it was absolutely vital for Members of Parliament to get out around the world and interact and network with people in important countries such as India, she started to calm down.
One conclusion that I reached from the visit was that, unlike after my previous visit to India in the early ’90s, I have come back as a friend of India and the Indian people. India is a fantastic country. It is huge and diverse, and every statistic about it is mind-boggling, but it is, nevertheless, a fascinating country. One of our interlocutors said to us that it lives in three centuries all at once—the 19th, 20th and 21st. Perhaps that sentiment will have become clear by the end of my remarks.
I must pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess), who led the delegation with great aplomb. He kept us all in order time-wise and in every other way, and he kept the whole programme running very well. I must also pay tribute to the team at the Industry and Parliament Trust—to Sally Muggeridge, the chief executive, to Sarah Hutchison and to all the IPT staff—because the visit was organised fantastically well.
Given my role as Front-Bench spokesman for international trade and international development, I tacked three days on to the end of my trip and went on a Department for International Development visit. I pay great tribute to Emma Spicer, the deputy head of DFID, who organised my trip to Pune, and to Michael Anderson, the head of DFID India, who accompanied me to slums in Kolkata and to Sunderbans—a swampy area on the Bangladesh-India border. Above all, I pay tribute to the redoubtable Shanatu Das, who turned out to meet me at 11 o’clock on a Saturday evening at the airport and could not have been more helpful throughout the entire three days of my DFID visit.
There are an awful lot of people to whom I need to pay tribute, but suffice it to say that it was great fun to be with my colleagues and particularly to have the benefit of our two peers, as others have said. We had a comprehensive visit, and it is difficult to name and thank everybody, particularly those who briefed us before we went to India and while we were there.
Among others, they were Virgin, Reliance Life Sciences, Hindustan Unilever, Yash Raj Studios in Bollywood, which has been mentioned, ALMT Legal, Tata, Bombay Stock Exchange, HSBC, BAE Systems, Shell, KPMG, Cadburys, GKN and Supreme. Now one can begin to see how many visits and what an action-packed programme we had. I must say to the Minister that our high commissions in all three cities that I visited—Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata—were incredibly helpful.
What have I learned from the visit? I think that people in this country do not realise what a diverse country India is, or how well liked the British are there. I could not get over the fact that, everywhere I went, the people were so friendly towards the British. English is a universally spoken language; it is the language of administration and trade, and I feel that the closeness between our two nations, despite our historical past, is amazing. In every sense, we are fostering links—whether trade, cultural or educational—and we must do much more in that respect. India has 1.2 billion people, which is 17 per cent. of the world’s population, and the number is growing. Some 70 per cent. of the population are living on less than $2 a day, 70 per cent. of the population are under 30 years old, and the average age is getting younger. It is a vibrant nation that is growing at 7 per cent. a year.
India still has huge potential in terms of its needs for education. Some 65 per cent. of the nation are educated, but that includes only a small proportion of people in some states. DFID is taking a very brave decision regarding its expenditure in India. It spends £270 million a year in India, which is more than in any other country in which it operates, and it is going to pull out of West Bengal, where there is 20 per cent. poverty, and concentrate instead on the four states with the greatest needs—Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Bihar. Bihar is an incredibly poor state, with over 50 per cent. poverty, and people trapped by the Dalit caste system and the 47 per cent. literacy rate, so there is a huge amount of work to be done there.
What have I learned? On the day that we heard the statistic that British manufacturing has contracted by 0.1 per cent., which is the largest fall in one month since records began in 1948, here we have a country with enormous potential for trade. We learned that India has a highly developed educational system, which is now translating itself into producing some of the best research in the world, and India is applying that research into producing highly innovative goods. However, there are enormous dangers. We visited GKN and found that it was making medium-tech half shafts for cars of the same quality that would be made here but for half the price, and one wonders why GKN would continue to manufacture in this country. That is an enormous danger for us, because how are we going to continue to provide jobs in the future, when a country such as India is as competitive as that? It behoves all those in Government to think about that very carefully. The answer is that we have to get cleverer and smarter at what we do. We have got to educate our people better; we have to give them better innovative skills and better research; and we have to help our companies to apply that research better, otherwise we are going to sink further and further down on the world stage.
I am marginally critical of the way in which we operate in India regarding trade, and I think we could do a much better job. It has already been pointed out today that not one of our four UK Trade & Investment representatives in Chennai has any business experience. In Pune, where I went, which is the fastest emerging second-tier city—India has 20 second-tier cities with populations of more than 1 million, of which Pune is the fastest growing—we have only one UKTI representative. We need to clarify the role between UKTI and UKIBC—the UK-India Business Council—because there is some muddle as to who does what. There is more scope for clarity in terms of trade, and there are huge opportunities of which we need to take advantage.
This has been a highly informative debate, and I am delighted to see that the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) has now joined us. His contribution to the visit was huge, as a former Trade Minister, and we benefited from his knowledge. It is great to see him here, and I shall conclude very rapidly if he wants a couple of minutes in which to speak.
Mr. Ian McCartney (Makerfield) (Lab) indicated assent.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: In conclusion, we had a highly informative visit, for which I am enormously grateful to the IPT and DFID. There is huge scope for increased cultural and educational links with India, and there is even greater scope for us to do more trade with India. It is a fantastic nation, which is emerging very fast. It is beginning to help itself to get out of poverty and all the other deep-seated problems that it has. The more that its finances grow, the more that it will be able to help itself get out of poverty. We have seen some excellent corporate social responsibility work from all the firms that I mentioned, which are doing great things throughout India to help some of the poorest people in the world. Statistics on the average proportion of poor people in a country show that India is still poorer than sub-Saharan Africa. I am grateful to all those who organised the trip, and I now conclude so that the right hon. Gentleman may say a few words.
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Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold) (Con): I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Sheridan. I congratulate you on your participation in the Chairmen’s Panel. I believe that this is the first event that you have chaired. It is a delight to follow the hon. Member for Eccles (Ian Stewart). I hope that he will find a way to continue to serve in the House after his seat is abolished at the next election; it would be a great loss to the House if he did not.
I have limited time and will start by describing a conversation I had with an unknown lady on the way to India. She attacked me verbally saying, “Why is this parliamentary delegation going to India? Is it not just a junket and a waste of taxpayers’ money?” When I assured her that it was not costing her anything as a taxpayer and that it was absolutely vital for Members of Parliament to get out around the world and interact and network with people in important countries such as India, she started to calm down.
One conclusion that I reached from the visit was that, unlike after my previous visit to India in the early ’90s, I have come back as a friend of India and the Indian people. India is a fantastic country. It is huge and diverse, and every statistic about it is mind-boggling, but it is, nevertheless, a fascinating country. One of our interlocutors said to us that it lives in three centuries all at once—the 19th, 20th and 21st. Perhaps that sentiment will have become clear by the end of my remarks.
I must pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess), who led the delegation with great aplomb. He kept us all in order time-wise and in every other way, and he kept the whole programme running very well. I must also pay tribute to the team at the Industry and Parliament Trust—to Sally Muggeridge, the chief executive, to Sarah Hutchison and to all the IPT staff—because the visit was organised fantastically well.
Given my role as Front-Bench spokesman for international trade and international development, I tacked three days on to the end of my trip and went on a Department for International Development visit. I pay great tribute to Emma Spicer, the deputy head of DFID, who organised my trip to Pune, and to Michael Anderson, the head of DFID India, who accompanied me to slums in Kolkata and to Sunderbans—a swampy area on the Bangladesh-India border. Above all, I pay tribute to the redoubtable Shanatu Das, who turned out to meet me at 11 o’clock on a Saturday evening at the airport and could not have been more helpful throughout the entire three days of my DFID visit.
There are an awful lot of people to whom I need to pay tribute, but suffice it to say that it was great fun to be with my colleagues and particularly to have the benefit of our two peers, as others have said. We had a comprehensive visit, and it is difficult to name and thank everybody, particularly those who briefed us before we went to India and while we were there.
Among others, they were Virgin, Reliance Life Sciences, Hindustan Unilever, Yash Raj Studios in Bollywood, which has been mentioned, ALMT Legal, Tata, Bombay Stock Exchange, HSBC, BAE Systems, Shell, KPMG, Cadburys, GKN and Supreme. Now one can begin to see how many visits and what an action-packed programme we had. I must say to the Minister that our high commissions in all three cities that I visited—Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata—were incredibly helpful.
What have I learned from the visit? I think that people in this country do not realise what a diverse country India is, or how well liked the British are there. I could not get over the fact that, everywhere I went, the people were so friendly towards the British. English is a universally spoken language; it is the language of administration and trade, and I feel that the closeness between our two nations, despite our historical past, is amazing. In every sense, we are fostering links—whether trade, cultural or educational—and we must do much more in that respect. India has 1.2 billion people, which is 17 per cent. of the world’s population, and the number is growing. Some 70 per cent. of the population are living on less than $2 a day, 70 per cent. of the population are under 30 years old, and the average age is getting younger. It is a vibrant nation that is growing at 7 per cent. a year.
India still has huge potential in terms of its needs for education. Some 65 per cent. of the nation are educated, but that includes only a small proportion of people in some states. DFID is taking a very brave decision regarding its expenditure in India. It spends £270 million a year in India, which is more than in any other country in which it operates, and it is going to pull out of West Bengal, where there is 20 per cent. poverty, and concentrate instead on the four states with the greatest needs—Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Bihar. Bihar is an incredibly poor state, with over 50 per cent. poverty, and people trapped by the Dalit caste system and the 47 per cent. literacy rate, so there is a huge amount of work to be done there.
What have I learned? On the day that we heard the statistic that British manufacturing has contracted by 0.1 per cent., which is the largest fall in one month since records began in 1948, here we have a country with enormous potential for trade. We learned that India has a highly developed educational system, which is now translating itself into producing some of the best research in the world, and India is applying that research into producing highly innovative goods. However, there are enormous dangers. We visited GKN and found that it was making medium-tech half shafts for cars of the same quality that would be made here but for half the price, and one wonders why GKN would continue to manufacture in this country. That is an enormous danger for us, because how are we going to continue to provide jobs in the future, when a country such as India is as competitive as that? It behoves all those in Government to think about that very carefully. The answer is that we have to get cleverer and smarter at what we do. We have got to educate our people better; we have to give them better innovative skills and better research; and we have to help our companies to apply that research better, otherwise we are going to sink further and further down on the world stage.
I am marginally critical of the way in which we operate in India regarding trade, and I think we could do a much better job. It has already been pointed out today that not one of our four UK Trade & Investment representatives in Chennai has any business experience. In Pune, where I went, which is the fastest emerging second-tier city—India has 20 second-tier cities with populations of more than 1 million, of which Pune is the fastest growing—we have only one UKTI representative. We need to clarify the role between UKTI and UKIBC—the UK-India Business Council—because there is some muddle as to who does what. There is more scope for clarity in terms of trade, and there are huge opportunities of which we need to take advantage.
This has been a highly informative debate, and I am delighted to see that the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) has now joined us. His contribution to the visit was huge, as a former Trade Minister, and we benefited from his knowledge. It is great to see him here, and I shall conclude very rapidly if he wants a couple of minutes in which to speak.
Mr. Ian McCartney (Makerfield) (Lab) indicated assent.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: In conclusion, we had a highly informative visit, for which I am enormously grateful to the IPT and DFID. There is huge scope for increased cultural and educational links with India, and there is even greater scope for us to do more trade with India. It is a fantastic nation, which is emerging very fast. It is beginning to help itself to get out of poverty and all the other deep-seated problems that it has. The more that its finances grow, the more that it will be able to help itself get out of poverty. We have seen some excellent corporate social responsibility work from all the firms that I mentioned, which are doing great things throughout India to help some of the poorest people in the world. Statistics on the average proportion of poor people in a country show that India is still poorer than sub-Saharan Africa. I am grateful to all those who organised the trip, and I now conclude so that the right hon. Gentleman may say a few words.
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