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British Business (China)

I hope that it will be a distinct pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Illsley. I am delighted to have secured this debate on a crucial topic. It was important in May and, given the global situation, it is even more important now that British businesses can operate globally and particularly in China. I am delighted to see here today so many of my colleagues who accompanied me on the Industry and Parliament Trust's most informative and highly educational visit to China in May—[Interruption.] I am gently reminded that we went to Shanghai, which I thought was in China! We did spend some time in the Shanghai region though. I am also pleased that in the Public Gallery we have representatives from the Chinese embassy and British businesses who provided people and resources to make the parliamentary fellowship programme possible. I pay tribute to the chairman of the all-party China group, my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, South (Ben Chapman), who accompanied us on our visit and who, over many years, has done tremendous work in fostering relationships between China and the UK. While I am in the business of giving my sincere thanks, I should mention that we were accompanied by two very helpful representatives from the Shanghai People's Congress, who made things work and were very informative and supportive. My thanks to them. All hon. Members, particularly those in the Chamber today, will be familiar with the work of the IPT, of which many here are fellows. They have benefited from the opportunity to undertake an attachment in industry to see at first hand the challenges and successes of British industry both in the UK and overseas. As chairman of the IPT, I remind hon. Members that its mission is to foster understanding between us as legislators and those who, over the years, have created the industrial wealth of our country. We have done that very successfully, and recently the IPT took the next step of integrating with Europe, so that we could understand European industry and Parliaments, too. Our trip to China was our first venture to look at the global marketplace, which was what made the visit so educational.