What the total budget available to support businesses exhibiting overseas was in each year since 1997.

The total annual budget to support exhibitions and seminars abroad, including overseas missions, has been between £16 million and £21.6 million for each year since 1997. The budget for 2004–05 is £20 million.

Does the Secretary of State agree that we need to support British exporters and that overseas exhibitions are a tremendous showcase for them to display their goods and an opportunity for networking? If the budget is cut, it will disincentivise businesses in respect of exhibiting overseas. If we do not support our exporters, we can be certain that the Germans, French and Italians, and our other competitors around the world, will support their businesses. Can we have a fresh commitment from the Government that they will not slash that budget?

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman about the need to maintain our support for British exporters and our support for inward investors alongside that. I invite him to cross the Floor and to join my hon. Friends on the Labour Benches and to join me in opposing the disastrous plans of the Opposition virtually to abolish UK Trade and Investment, and with it, support for more than 30,000 British firms with their exports.

Does my right hon. Friend recognise that the improvement in the organisation and accountability of much of the outward trade mission organisation is welcome? Indeed, the back-up that it has received over recent years from embassy staff has been of the highest order. There is an anxiety, however, that the electoral irrelevance of the Opposition means that it is down to us to reassure people that we will continue to give them the backing and support that they currently enjoy, and that the worries of organisations such as regional development agencies and the Scottish Council for Development and Industry about a reduction in even a Labour Government's budget are unfounded. She should be able to reassure such organisations that the passport to export is going to be facilitated and supported as well as it has been in the recent past.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Although we are certainly seeking to run this superb service even more efficiently in future than we have done in the past and to ensure that we get support for inward investors alongside exporters, I am happy to give him and our business customers that reassurance. Unlike the Opposition, we will not abolish passport to export, which is an enormous success, and unlike them, we will not abolish research and development grants or regional selective assistance. We will continue to support British firms and workers.

The Secretary of State knows perfectly well that we are committed to maintaining R and D budgets.

When will the Secretary of State recognise that the best way to tackle the crisis in the balance of payments—it is a crisis because the deficit is very close to an all-time high—lies not with a string of different organisations having a finger in the pie, including all the regional development agencies throughout the country, UKTI and other bodies, but in having a single export promotion agency led by people with real experience from industry?

If the hon. Gentleman would care to look at his own James report, he would see that he and his party propose to sack 700 United Kingdom Trade and Investment staff and secondees—most of whom have private-sector experience—and put in 50 from the private sector. The business community has been the first to say that that simply would not work. In the James report, the Conservative party proposals for cutting £500 million—

Order. Propaganda is for the manifesto, not the Floor of the House.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the best ways of exhibiting British business and showcasing British talents is to ensure that British products are in use in overseas markets? That being the case, will she join me in welcoming the negotiations on a possible joint venture between MG Rover Group and Shanghai Automotive? It offers the prospect not only of selling those products in Chinese markets, but of investment here in the United Kingdom. While recent press reports have been wide of the mark, will she assure the House that the Government are doing all that they can to bring those negotiations to a successful conclusion?

As my hon. Friend knows, we are absolutely solid in our support for the UK motor manufacturing industry and for its increasingly successful exports. As he said, we certainly cannot believe everything that has been in the press recently on this subject. I take every opportunity to stress to Chinese Ministers and business colleagues in particular the enormous merits of the United Kingdom as a place for inward investment. I am doing everything possible within my power to help ensure that those negotiations on a joint venture are successfully concluded.