Extract from report stage (Lords) of the Criminal Finances Bill
Lord Naseby (Con):...I have had the privilege of working overseas
in Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka, and I spent part of my
national service in Canada. Certainly when I was in commerce, with
the Reckitt & Colman Overseas group, one of the bugbears about
international trade—I am talking about several decades ago, but I
am afraid it has not changed—is that it is not a level playing
field. Here we are, approaching...Request free trial
Extract from report stage
(Lords) of the Criminal Finances Bill
(Con):...I have had
the privilege of working overseas in Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka, and I spent part of my
national service in Canada. Certainly when I was in commerce, with
the Reckitt & Colman Overseas group, one of the bugbears about
international trade—I am talking about several decades ago, but I
am afraid it has not changed—is that it is not a level playing
field. Here we are, approaching Brexit and hoping to trade
internationally, but the tragedy of the situation is that somehow
neither we in the United Kingdom nor other countries have ever
managed to persuade the United States, Hong Kong and Singapore to
have a central, non-public register. We have not even got that far.
Even on the basis of what we are doing now, we have rivals. Make no
mistake about it: most of our overseas territories are in the
Caribbean, their main competitor is the United States and they do
not even have a central beneficial ownership register. Not only
will they lose business if we go too far but if the other parties,
particularly the US, Singapore and Hong Kong, take business from
our overseas territories, the net result will be that where we are
getting information out of our overseas territories, if the
business goes elsewhere then the co-operation that the UK gets from
those territories—which is good and is going to be even better—will
be totally undermined. Frankly, we will not get any information
from the US, Hong Kong or Singapore...
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Extract from Lords debate
on the Steel Industry
(CB):...The British
Government have been accused of disgraceful behaviour for labelling
certain industries, including the struggling steel sector, as
low-priority before detailed talks about leaving the EU. Can the
Minister confirm that? I am a proud manufacturer of Cobra beer,
with my joint venture partners, Molson Coors. We are one of the
largest brewers in the world. We manufacture in Burton upon Trent
in the largest brewery in Britain. Yet the 10 pillars of the
Government’s industrial strategy make no mention of manufacturing.
Manufacturing was 30% of our GDP in the 1970s; today it is
10%. India has a target to increase
manufacturing from 16% to 25% of GDP. We have no such target. Will
the Minister say why we do not?
...We know that the steel industry has halved and that China has
quadrupled its production since 2000. Yet, as the noble Lord,
, said, there is a global
capacity that exceeds demand by 600 million tonnes per year. The
noble Lord, , mentioned Tata Steel.
Britain should be grateful to Tata for its billions of pounds of
investment in British steel over the years. It is one of the
largest manufacturers in Europe and has strong links with
universities. It has endowed a chair at the University of
Cambridge. I declare my interest as chair of the advisory board of
the Cambridge Judge Business School. Some 60% of Tata Steel’s sales
are to UK manufacturers and 25% are to the EU. The most important
thing about the company is that it tries to be innovative. It has
said that you must continue to drive innovation, but it pleads for
a level playing field on energy costs, anti-dumping and business
rates. Does the Minister agree with that? Tata Steel says that the
success and future of the steel industry depend on innovation and
skills and that the Government need to support periods of
transition when the steel industry goes through ups and downs. In
the past, the Government have said they would support this
industry, yet when the Prime Minister went to India in November she did not even meet
anyone from Tata...
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Extract from remaining
stages (Commons) of the Finance Bill
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Jane
Ellison):...The Government are committed to supporting
this great British success story. Scotch whisky was one of the
first food and drink products to feature in the GREAT campaign,
giving it high visibility internationally in key markets. More
recently, the Scotch Whisky Association joined my right hon. Friend
the Prime Minister on her trade mission to India last year. Scotch whisky is
currently just 1% of the Indian spirits market, but it has the
potential to grow to 5% with the right trade agreement. That would
be equivalent to a 10% increase in the current global trade in
Scotch...
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