Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300-305)
BERR AND UKTI
28 APRIL 2008
Q300 Mr Hoyle: Can I say, that sounds
good, that statistic, but what it does not tell you is how long
people had to wait to actually get them issued.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: I know
you and I tend to think more alike than we ever thought either
of us would because I was about to say that. We handled 79,000
applications in that year. The issue, and I have had experience
of this a lot over the last few months, is the speed. More than
always it is about, "Can you get involved to speed it up?",
not "Can you get them to change their decision?". Lindsay,
you are absolutely right, the issue is about getting it speeded
up. There will be a significant improvement to that speed issue
with the introduction of digital photographing and, of course,
digital finger scans. That came in on 6 December 2007 and I hope
we are going to see the figures reflect that this coming year.
We have got five offices now opening in Turkey to receive applications,
not just Ankara and Istanbul but also Bursa, Gaziantep and Izmir,
so hopefully that will also help speed it up. We see the speed
as an issue. I do not in any way apologise for the 6.8%, I think
that is a totally different issue. The treatment of Turkish applications
for visas is no different from anywhere else.
Q301 Chairman: Can you assure us
on that because the TBBC were worried about some of the sensitive
personal questions applicants had to answer and they said it is
not helpful to trade. Frankly, all I can say is personally I would
not want to have to go through that process for entrance to a
country. They are the same questions that Turkish applicants are
asked as anyone from any other country is asked?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: I am
quite convinced in my indecision on this. Do I like being asked
a question that I get asked by Americans when I go in there, probably
not. Does somebody from Japan like getting asked the questions
they are asked?
Q302 Chairman: You think they are
the same questions? You do not think the Turks are singled out
on particular questions?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: No,
the Turks are not singled out, categorically not singled out.
Are they intrusive, I think they probably are.
Q303 Chairman: It is a general problem.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: It is
a general point. Although in the long-term I am a huge believer
that with business engagement in opening up and trade and investment
guaranteed to grow, you are going to get a safer society in the
long haul because you are going to get more prosperous people
with access to clean water and better health care and better education.
That has to be where we have got to take this, but on the way
through, every time you engage with another country with commercial
intercourse you will have a security issue, period. Do I want
a safe society, of course I do. On the way through I acknowledge
that it is not an easy part.
Q304 Chairman: It is a frustrating
subject always looking at the future because we do not know when
Turkey is going to join the EU. The earliest possible date is
2014. I think in procedural terms it is likely to be beyond that.
Full membership will take a period beyond that because of the
inevitable transitional arrangements, particularly for migration
of labour, so a full membership is a long way off yet. We are
trying to make sure Britain is as well positioned as possible
when that day dawns, like this Committee it hopes it will as soon
as possible so that the questions are in the present rather than
the future. One issue we have not talked about at all so far is
Turkey as a gateway to new markets. It struck us that Turkey is,
for example, uniquely well placed in relation to Palestine and
Israel, which is an unusual combination to get on well with. One
of your colleagues, Jim Murphy, was speaking recently at the Wilton
Park Conference on Turkey Accession and said, "We should
look to Turkey to act as an economic bridge to Central Asia and
the Middle East". Do you think Turkish membership means more
for Britain than just Turkey? Does it open up other gates as well
and other markets?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: Yes.
Firstly, at a geo-political and globalised level, in five to ten
years from now if you drew a line down which you would fold the
world it is going to go straight down the Middle East. One of
the great weather vanes of where you think intercourse is going
to happen in the next 15 years is look at which airlines are buying
what type of aircraft and where they are basing their hubs because
they are the guys who have to make the judgment calls on where
they think the activity is coming. Dubai is the obvious hub that
you always hear about but there are many others. The airlines
that are buying them are the Asia airlines and the Middle East
airlines, and where are they looking to go, eastwards and the
Middle East. If you look at some of the purchasing decisions from
your Lufthansas and your British Airways lately, they have been
looking at the Atlantic almost as short haul, not quite, but very
much, not where it used to be when we were kids which was the
big adventure west. The first thing to say is Turkey will be placed
on that line. If you look at that line where you would fold the
world, Turkey would be there or thereabouts, so she has a role
to play in being the European Union's most eastern hub, that is
the first thing, in pole position to exploit where that fold in
the world will be. Secondly, if you look at her geographically
from an energy point of view, everybody talks about climate change
as being the enormous challenge of the 21st century, of course
it is, but where we get our energy from is going to be as important,
whether it is nuclear, whether it is sustainable or whether it
is fossil fuel. Wherever it is going to come from, we need our
friends in and around the places where you will find fossil fuel.
Turkey is absolutely in the place for Central Asia and also for
the Middle East. She is secular, moderate Muslim. That has to
be a place where we want to engage if we, as democratic nations
in the European Union, believe in them having the freedom of worship
in a moderate tolerant way and we having the same. Again, that
will give them great leverage in a changed century. As you rightly
said, if you look down at Palestine to Israel to the Gulf and
then if you look up to the emerging and enormous power of Russia
from a wealth point of view in the next 50 years, Turkey is in
and around there as well. I think she is strategically placed
for a British business in different sectors to get in there, use
it as a platform to exploit everything I have just talked about,
but I think from a geo-political point of view, if you were a
government in the European Union you would be thinking, "I
need some friends in that part of the world to lever off in various
ways", all of which will help business in the long run because
it will all lead to a more stable predictable environment, which
is what business needs and for all of that Turkey is in poll position
and, as a European Union, we would be so foolish to ignore that
opportunity.
Q305 Chairman: I would like to ask
you a question on what we could learn from Turkey, particularly
on compulsory membership of chambers of commerce, but your train
summons you!
Lord Jones of Birmingham: I will
end with this, Chairman. TUSIAD were good friends of the CBI and
they came to Britain often, we went there often, and it really
did annoy me that, rightly in a competitive economy, I had to
go out every day and justify membership with my organisation and
they just used to say, "Well, you're a business, you've got
to join". I did envy them that, that is for sure.
Chairman: I envy your trip to Liverpool,
the city of culture. Thank you very much indeed.
|
