It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) on securing this debate. I declare my interests: I am chairman of the all-party group for the Commonwealth, and I am the former Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister for the Commonwealth in the Commons, although I was reporting to the right hon. Lord Howell of Guildford at the time.
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford). His expertise on New Zealand is greatly appreciated. I think our total bilateral trade with New Zealand is about £6 billion. With the Republic of Ireland, it is about £32 billion, so there is a lot of ground to be made up.
There has been much discussion about the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council meeting on 15 March. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) on the work he has done on that superb council and initiative. It is going to be co-hosted by the UK and Malta, and I think it really gives us an opportunity to look at where we go post-Brexit. We can—I hope the Minister will confirm this—start the pre-negotiations with many of
these countries. We obviously cannot negotiate trade deals with Commonwealth countries until we actually exit the EU, but surely we can do a lot of the background work. I would be grateful if he could confirm that.
I recently met up with a number of Commonwealth high commissioners, who really want to be fully engaged in this process. They are the key link personnel in London, and they have a vital role to play. May I suggest that before the summit on the 15 March, the Minister has a pre-meeting with the Commonwealth high commissioners in London? I think that would be a really good initiative.
The hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) made an excellent point about Commonwealth migration. I, too, would take student numbers out of migration figures. When we get control of our borders, we need to be sensible and ensure we have the right talent when people come to this country to work. For example, Russell Group universities have on average twice as many non-EU students as EU students. When EU students finish their studies they can do a postgraduate course or work here, whereas many of the non-EU students cannot work and have to go back to their country, as in many cases they find it very difficult to get a work permit or a visa. I think that industry and business need the advantages that will come from our being able to pick the brightest and best without any discrimination in favour of one country or another.
I absolutely agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara) said a moment ago about border controls. How we treat Commonwealth citizens is going to be really important in the future, and what clearer and more emphatic innovative signal can we send than changing our border arrival arrangements? I suggest that, post-Brexit, we should have one queue for UK citizens, including citizens of the overseas territories and citizens of the realm—the Commonwealth countries that chose to keep Her Majesty as Head of State—another queue for Commonwealth citizens, or perhaps Commonwealth and EU together, and another for the rest of the world. That would show our trading partners where our loyalties and interests lie. After all, the people side of trade—the services side, and the exchange of people and ideas—is incredibly important.