Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-159)
MR GARETH
THOMAS AND
LORD JONES
OF BIRMINGHAM
8 JANUARY 2008
Q140 Miss Kirkbride: So the two will
co-exist much more?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: Yes.
When I was at the CBI I used to—and I do it now—always
want to go and see the British Council, for instance, because
they are part of "Brand Britain"; they are part of being
able to bring all the different impetuses and influences of this
nation to bear to enhance the brand of our country somewhere else,
while those business councils are another part of that. So, no,
Minister—it should not just be Digby going and seeing them
(Gareth will obviously go and see them); I want someone from Defra
to go and see them when they visit; someone from education to
go and visit them; transport when they visit, the Chancellor when
he visits. One of the things we have to do is break down these
silos (and this is not a government issue, the private sector
have silos just the same) and ensure that business transcends
all the departments of government. One of the ways you can do
that is through the Business Council because it can be there as
a place where people visit, people talk and people have influence.
I do not want this just to be a UKTI Business Council love-in.
It is and it will be, but we would miss a trick if we kept it
there.
Q141 Miss Kirkbride: The proposed
JETCO working group website, which is to be run and hosted by
UKIBC, had not appeared as of yesterday. When will it happen?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: I will
get back to you. That is the truth. I do not know. I will not
pretend to know, but I will get back to you.
Q142 Chairman: Can I just be a little
clear, because when I was in Hong Kong earlier this year, I was
told how pleased UKTI was with the way the China Business Council
was actually delivering UKTI services on the ground in places
they could not necessarily reach.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: It is.
Q143 Chairman: Do you see that specific
role, perhaps, emerging for the UK-India Business Council in the
future, delivering services on the ground in places where you
cannot actually, at present—
Lord Jones of Birmingham: Thank
you, Chairman, for reminding me, because that is a very important
part of going forward. We actually—subcontract is too pompous
a word—ask them to deliver services for payment in China,
which we do not do in India. Two reasons: one is that at this
moment we do not think there is a need and, secondly, it is very
new on the ground. So will that happen in the future? I would
not count it out. Is it in my plans, as I speak, for the next
12 months? No.
Q144 Chairman: So you are quietly
privatising UKTI?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: You
might say that. I could not possibly comment.
Q145 Mr Binley: Alistair Darling
went to India in January, you went in September. They must be
highly flattered with all this treatment from very important people
from the UK. Clearly, you picked up some stuff about our policy
in relation to the way we are working with a country as important
as India. How do you feed that back?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: To?
Q146 Mr Binley: To the policy-makers,
because you tell us you are not.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: How
do I do that?
Q147 Mr Binley: Yes.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: When
I come back from a visit, and India is no different to anywhere
else, there will be a formal report which will get circulated.
You have reminded me, and you are right, that you should have
a copy of that—and so you should. We will put that right.
Q148 Mr Binley: That was my next
question.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: So you
should. That formal report will, to a degree, knowing its circulation,
probably be not as either critical or it might be sanitised in
terms of ensuring it is not offensive. Then things for which "There
is no easy way to say this but"—and this might not
be about how Britain is dealing with India, this might be how
India is dealing with Britain; it is a two-way street—we
should not fall over ourselves and say: "India is fabulous
and we're wrong"; there are loads of things India should
be putting right, but, again, it does not pay to put that in a
report which a newspaper will get. What is the point? It is important
that we get them moving with us, not against us. That private
sort of stuff I do. You may imagine, actually, Brian, I will get
on the `phone to certain ministers in both countries and say:
"Look, don't shoot the messenger; I am merely telling you
what I picked up. Can I just make it clear?" Sometimes officials
in both countries find that a little different, shall we say,
and welcome the change. As long as you are polite, as long as
you are constructive and as long as you do it in private and do
not embarrass, I see nothing wrong with it.
Q149 Mr Binley: Are you frustrated
by this role, because here you were in the CBI—
Lord Jones of Birmingham: I love
it, actually.
Q150 Mr Binley: Hang on, I have not
asked the question yet.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: You
asked me and I have just told you!
Q151 Mr Binley: In the CBI you made
a lot of policy for a very important instrument in this country,
and you are not doing it now. I am getting the impression that
you are the Arthur Daley and Gareth here is the Dennis Waterman—the
Minder. Every time you come up with policy, in comes old Gareth
just to make the point that the minder is doing his job. Are you
just Gordon Brown's icon in this respect? I am concerned about
the lack of ability you have in an area which is very important
to Britain, where I need businessmen to be having real input,
and you are not.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: Firstly
to say that the one thing Arthur Daley tried to sell was rubbish.
Q152 Mr Binley: No, he did not; he
sold some good stuff as well.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: The
one thing that I sell is, I think, the best country on earth and
certainly one of the great, great business nations. I think the
product is different. Secondly, I tend to think of myself, let
alone what others think, as a tad more effective and better than
Arthur Daley. From a point of view of: do I think I have a minder—I
do not. (I do not think you have ever thought of yourself as that.)
Thirdly, do I find that frustrating? No, I do not, really. You
mentioned "Are you Gordon Brown's icon?" The one thing
I do really applaud the Prime Minister for is that in June he
really did decide that at delivery—not in Cabinet but at
delivery, minister-of-state-level—there were four areas,
health, foreign policy, defence and security, and business, where
he was going to do it differently. For the first time ever they
brought people in. at a mature age, having done something else
with their lives, to that. That is different. It is going to get
opponents; it is going to get people saying: "I don't like
change. I worry about change". It is six months in and it
seems to be working. Was it always going to be a complete breeze?
No. We are all over 21 and we understood that, and every one of
the four of us has had—
Q153 Chairman: Let us try and focus
on India at this stage.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: I was
going to say if you call "icon" as being Digby personally,
individually, I disagree with you. If you mean by "icon"
that I am part of a different way of delivering in certain key
areas of this economy, then I am proud to be part of that. The
Prime Minister did say to me that day: "You will have a problem
sometimes and I will support you". And he has.
Q154 Chairman: We must get back to
India.
Mr Thomas: With respect, I am
being accused of being Dennis Waterman. Great actor as he is,
I do think I should have a say. I agree with Digby, I think the
first inspired decision that Gordon took was to separate out the
two parts of the trade minister's job. It has freed up me hugely
to concentrate on the negotiations outside, and I genuinely think
Digby is doing a fantastic job in the trade promotion side of
things. We do talk. Our officials talk. I think we complement
each other's roles. I do not agree with him about his views on
sport but we work very well together in terms of the different
parts of our job where they interact. I do not think it is a case
of someone being somebody's minder, it absolutely is not; it is
about two people, and indeed other parts of government, working
closely together, and I think that is what has happened.
Mr Binley: Okay. Old men coming into
politics from business is a very frustrating business, perhaps,
when they see it on personal experience. Let me move on.
Chairman: You are very far from the first—very
far!
Q155 Mr Binley: I do not know; we
are pretty much the same actually. Let us move on. I want an update
on the recent JETCO ministerial, because that is really rather
important in relation to India. Sectorally, which areas saw the
most progress and which remain blocked? Has there been any additional
progress in the last few months?
Mr Thomas: The biggest blockage
is in terms of our relationship with India. As I described in
answer to Miss Kirkbride, it is around financial services (Digby
has touched on the problems about ownership that there are); it
is around retail; it is around legal services; it is also around
intellectual property rights, and it is around government procurement.
All of those are areas where we want to make far more substantial
progress than we have been able to make up to now and where we
are optimistic (I put it at that stage) that as a result of the
EU-India discussions that have begun we may see substantial progress.
That is certainly what the British business community is very
keen to see as well. There have been three sets of negotiations,
the last just before Christmas, and we are waiting to see India's
offer and we are preparing our own offer. I cannot tell you when
the next set of negotiations is going to be; I expect it to be
soon but they have not been formally tabled.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: Can
I just highlight three things? Interestingly, I was in the room
when Patricia Hewitt had come on for JETCO, which was four years
ago. It is a delight now to be part of it again in a different
guise. It has got legs and it is working. As Gareth said, it is
not working as quickly as we would like in one or two areas. One
area I have in mind is that India is a huge manufacturer of generic
pharmaceuticals and, of course, the temptation when you are a
big manufacturer of generics is how do you get your hands on the
IP to no longer be generic? The temptation of counterfeiting is
an enormous issue. We do not suffer in Britain from that but,
for instance, South Africa does on exports from India to South
Africa of pharmaceuticals. They are up against your GSKs your
AstraZenecas and your British companies. It is in another location
but it is an Indian issue. It is being able to do that within
JETCO to try and drive that forward, which has a huge impact on
DFID's work in Africa, although it is actually an Indian issue.
I got on the case of that at the CBI and I have stayed on that.
Secondly is the chestnut we have already talked about, financial
services. In this job, both our jobs, you have to repeat it again
and again and again and again, because the day you do not repeat
it they think you are off the case. I make no apology for every
time we have a junket I try and get that working. Thirdly, and
it is something I would really welcome this Committee's help on
going forward, is that, rightly, your Frances, your Americas and
your Japans, but also us and Germany, are always thought of as
dealing and negotiating with China and India on protectionism—both
ways. The way that India behaves with some countries which are
lower down the wealth league—some of the least developed
countries (I have in mind Bangladesh)—and the way that China
behaves with some countries on trade much lower down the league
(I have in mind Vietnam) is, frankly, capable of serious improvement.
(I am learning, because those are not words I would have used
two years ago.) If we can all use JETCO and your influence and
pressure in other things you do to get them to step up to the
plate on responsibilities lower down the league, and not always
let us all concentrate—because they love to—on the
ones in the G8 then we will have done the poorest people on this
planet a huge turn for good. India, China and Brazil have responsibilities
to the poor of this world, like we do, but they tend to always
look to us for the row and we should actually be getting them
also to just behave a little more magnanimously (perhaps that
is too pompous a word) at the bottom.
Q156 Chairman: We have got a maximum
of 15 minutes and two big areas of questioning left.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: By the
way: is that policy? Yes, it is.
Q157 Mr Binley: I just want to move
on to the Prime Minister's visit, which is due to take place.
How is the planning progressing and how will it impact upon trade?
I assume you will have companies in the vanguard. How is all of
that working?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: From
the point of view of specific dates upcoming, security does demand
(and you will understand this) I am not going to say in this room
what is going to happen.
Q158 Mr Binley: Absolutely.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: Please
do not think I am obfuscating, it is just obviously the right
thing to do. Secondly, his exact itinerary when he is there I
truly do not know; that is the truth. What I do know is I am taking
70 businessmen and women on one delegation to India and then joining
in with China; he is taking 30 direct to China, and then we are
all coming back to India for the second time. So we are tooled
up with about 100 businessmen and women coming with the Prime
Minister's delegation; some coming with me earlier but then staying
on, and we have got John Hutton there, Secretary of State for
BERR, myself and, obviously, the Number Ten crew as well. It is
staggeringly important. It is shaping up very, very well. It is
important, for instance, in Shanghai. In two years' time we have
got World Expo happening in Shanghai, 2010, and we have got this
prime site on the river where, if you walk down the boardwalk
down the river, if you are on the river, or if you are on the
other side, you are going to see the Union Jack as one of the
first things you will see in Expo. The choice of location and
the negotiation was pre-me; other clever people deserve the credit
for this, but it is a fabulous thing. To use that and the Prime
Minister's visit as a highlight of saying: "Look where we
are—we matter" in Shanghai is going to be very, very
important.
Q159 Mr Binley: I understand that.
Do we really see this as a real opportunity to further the breaking
down of barriers in finance, law and so forth?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: Yes,
you just keep going.
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