LABOUR FRIENDS OF INDIA ANNUAL LUNCHEON 2008
(22 April 2008)

The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown presented Lord Neil Kinnock with the Fenner Brockway Medal for the services of the British Council in India at the Labour Friends of India ‘Annual Luncheon’, on Tuesday 22 April 2008 in London. Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, also addressed the audience and underlined his commitment in embracing the opportunity that India represents.

The event was attended by The Rt. Hon. Mr Jack Straw MP - Leader of the House of Commons, The Rt. Hon. Ms Tessa Jowell MP - Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport, The Rt Hon. MPs Barry Gardiner and Stephen Pound, industrialist Lord Swaraj Paul, Lord Neil Kinnock, Indian Deputy High Commissioner Mr Asoke Mukherjee, Mayor Ken Livingstone, local councillors and over 150 leaders from business and community.

The Prime Minister, in his speech said of India "It is not a low paid run economy we're moving towards, it is a high skilled world economy, and India and Britain with their strategic partnership, have a huge role to play and I want India and Britain to work in even closer relationships in the times to come. When I was in India, we signed an agreement for greater university to university cooperation and we will be working with Prime Minister Singh to help build another 12 universities in India. We are closely working with the Indian Government to do so.

We signed an agreement so that we could cooperate on the environment. Both our countries have huge climate change challenges that we have got to meet. Prime Minister Singh recognised that the Stern report made a difference to the argument about what is happening in each country around the world and I now want to look forward to great cooperation on the environment as well. We talked about medical and scientific cooperation and how we can extend it with some of the great inventiveness and innovation that is coming out of India and that with our determination to sponsor science in the UK means that we can move forward also in scientific, and in cooperation in medicine. We talked about getting the chance to travel from India to Britain and Britain to India, so that young people at an early age could have more than I had - the slide shows about India. But they've got the chance to visit India and Indians have the chance to visit Britain, both huge exchanges for the future.

We also talked about the expansion of trade between our two countries, 20% rise in the amount of trade in one year, it just shows how much is going on between our two countries. And, of course, TATA was mentioned today. We are pleased we have great Indian companies buying into British industry, we are pleased we have great Indian companies taking over and investing in steel and in new technology, and there are many other ways that this cooperation can be extended in years to come."

The Prime Minister added I" believe that a Security Council without India cannot be a security council that is properly effective."

"I believe that the G8 that discusses the world economy without involving the Indian voice cannot be a G8 that is properly discussing all details of what needs to be done in the world economy, and that's why we need India involved in those discussions, as well. I believe India and Britain working together can make proposals to reform the international institutions in a way that will mean that globalisation will deliver benefits to the many and not the few.

We need an early warning system for the world economy, so we prevent the types of credit crunch we've had in the last few months, and that's why we need an international institution that commands the support of the Asian continent, as well as Europe and America that can act".

So, I look forward to working with the Indian government and the Indian people in a major programme of reform of the international institutions that will recognise that, as we should do, the rise in importance of India in the world, but recognise also that India, Britain and other countries working together are the only means by which we can create the type of world that will give us all peace and prosperity and sustainable development."

Click here for more photos from the Labour Friends of India 2008 lunch.