Your firm guidance and chairmanship, Mr Davies, are always much appreciated by Members.
This has been an excellent debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) and to the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham), both of whom spoke very powerfully about the importance of education and visas connected with education. I especially want to draw out the remarks of the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), who spoke with great knowledge and understanding of the dangers that exist for our farmers.
I pay tribute, too, to the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) for initiating the debate. I thought it could have been subtitled “The importance of old friends”, because long before the Common Market became a twinkle in Edward Heath’s eye we had the Commonwealth. At a time when we are loosening the bonds with our nearest friends after a 40-year partnership in the EU, we have come to realise the value of those old friends. We seek to strengthen our ties with India, Canada, New Zealand, Jamaica, Australia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and all 52 Commonwealth members.
Trade is one of the most effective means of creating shared prosperity and decent jobs. Opposition Members understand the power of fair and open trade. We share the dream of the vast majority of people around the world who want to see closer ties between countries. We want to build trade links, not protectionist walls. We are therefore emphatic in our support for promoting trade with the Commonwealth and in welcoming the Commonwealth Trade Ministers conference to London next month. In that regard, I pay tribute to the work of the right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire).
[Albert Owen in the Chair]
It would be foolish, however, to think that we in the UK may simply pick up where we left off before we joined the EU. The world has changed, the power balance has changed and the nature of global trade has been transformed beyond recognition. Yesterday, His Excellency Y. K. Sinha, the new high commissioner for India in London, made that absolutely clear at a conference in East Anglia. He said that the key to a post-Brexit free trade agreement would be to resolve the issue of workers’ mobility—how familiar does that sound from our Brexit debate? He made it clear that, for India, it is essential to ensure that its financial services and IT professionals could come to and go from the UK freely. He said:
“For India mobility is key”
and went on to point out that a recent study suggested that a free trade agreement could increase UK-India trade by 25%—I use that figure, but the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen said 26%. That would boost UK exports by only 0.4% of total exports. The hon. Gentleman spoke of the “huge prize” that that would
be, but let us be clear and do the maths: none of the UK’s top 10 export partners is a Commonwealth country. Indeed, in respect of those Commonwealth countries for which the Government have announced trade working groups and dialogues, the volume of exports from the UK is extremely low. India accounts for 1.7% of our exports, Australia 1.7%, Canada 1.2% and New Zealand approximately 0.2%. Let us add Singapore, given the Secretary of State’s recent visit—that accounts for an additional 1.2%.