China

Tony Baldry (Banbury): Madam Deputy Speaker, I apologise to you and to the Minister for the fact that I shall not be able to stay for the whole debate, but I am chairing a meeting of the International Development Select Committee.

The hon. Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Chapman), the excellent chairman of the all-party group on China, is to be congratulated on securing this debate. If the millennium development goals for 2015 are to be met, it will be largely because of the Herculean efforts that have been made by China to lift her people out of poverty. The past five years have probably been the most momentous for relations between China and the UK.

As the hon. Member for Wirral, South said, the hand over of Hong Kong, about five years ago, was much more successful than most people had expected. The following year, the Chinese Prime Minister visited the UK, and our Prime Minister visited China. In 1999, there was the extremely successful state visit of the President of China, the first such state visit ever. Those visits have been followed by others, such as that of the Vice-President last year, and the chairman of the People's consultative committee this year. Against that background, there has also been a substantial increase in bilateral trade. The Chinese ambassador said only yesterday that there were only about 8,000 Chinese students studying in the UK when he visited this country five years ago, whereas there are now about 40,000. Our relations with China have been strengthened considerably during that period.

As one of the vice-chairs of the all-party group on China, I want to reinforce something that the hon. Member for Wirral, South said on a parliamentary housekeeping point. The British-American parliamentary group receives public funding, and other groups in the House can secure overseas visits either through the Inter-Parliamentary Union or, for Commonwealth countries, through the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. We are often very fortunate in being welcomed by other countries, as happened recently when the National People's Congress entertained Members of the House of Commons. I did not go on that visit, but I have recently been to China on my own account. However, the lack of budgetary assistance makes it difficult for us to invite representatives of other countries here. If relations between Parliaments are to be thickened, a two-way dialogue is required.

Some people in the private sector are willing to support the work of the all-party group on China, which they regard as important. An unintended consequence of the legislation on donations to political parties has been to muck that up. If a public company in the UK wishes to give money to the all-party group on China for the purpose of exchanges between parliamentarians, it has to obtain the approval of its shareholders at an annual general meeting. Companies are not unwilling to do that, nor have they anything to hide, but it is an additional imposition. The hon. Member for Wirral, South and I can talk to the chairman of the Electoral Commission, Sam Younger, about the matter, but I suspect that he is constrained by the law.

We need to consider whether the House could set up a trust fund or other mechanism to facilitate parliamentary exchanges without public companies having to go through the brouhaha of resolutions at their annual general meetings to enable them to give modest sums. Otherwise, it will be difficult to develop and thicken the relations that are necessary between this Parliament and the National People's Congress in China, which I am sure we all want to do. China is a large and increasingly important country. It is in all our interests to get to know how Chinese parliamentarians think and how they view issues.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Denis MacShane) : I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, as it is unusual to give way to the Minister. Parliament voted recently to allow all hon. Members to make three visits to European countries, not on matters to do with the Government. Speaking as a Member of Parliament and not as a Minister, I would have no problem with a resolution to allow one trip a year further abroad to enable hon. Members to make longer range visits, which are, I agree, so important.

Tony Baldry: That is a constructive comment, and I endorse it. It is difficult for us to invite parliamentarians to Westminster as our guests to discuss matters such as those mentioned by the hon. Member for Wirral, South in relation to human rights. That cannot be done in headlines; it requires a degree of subtlety and should progress over a period of time when we have established some trust and got to know people. It is important to keep dialogue going in both directions.

Bilateral trade with China has doubled over recent years. However, there is still enormous potential for small and medium-sized businesses. The China-Britain Business Council does brilliant work, and is much to be congratulated. So, too, do many British trade partners. The export of the year award was made at the lunch to celebrate the Chinese new year, and I was struck by the fact that it has often been a matter of chance that the winner has been established in China. I suspect that much more needs to be done to give small and medium-sized businesses the confidence to get to grips with the Chinese market. Those that do, and persevere, find openings for specialist niche companies, but they need help.

With regard to culture and language, China is an increasingly important player on the world stage, but practically no schools in the UK offer Mandarin as a subject. It is not an impossible subject; my daughter has just completed a GCSE in Mandarin and hopes to go to China for her gap year to teach English. So it is possible, although she was fortunate in being at a school that offered Mandarin. For her and others who study the language, it is essential to understand that a culture can have completely different values, but that it is none the less important for that. Having some understanding of those cultural values is extremely important for people in our schools if they are not to see China in terms of historic stereotypes. We should consider how we in the UK can ensure that we have a better understanding of Chinese culture, history and language, provide greater opportunities for youngsters in our schools and enable those who may like to do so to study Mandarin.

Those were my three brief points. The first concerned how we can improve relations between the UK Parliament and the National People's Congress; the second, how we can help small and medium-sized businesses to take greater advantage of the ever-growing Chinese market; and the third what we can do to ensure a better understanding in our schools of Chinese culture and greater opportunities for children to learn Mandarin.