The first full-blown trade mission to India since Theresa May was prime minister, it’s designed to boost ties between the two countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sir Keir – whose face has been plastered over posters and billboards across Mumbai – will meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, five months after the UK signed\u00a0the first trade deal with India since Brexit.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The agreement has yet to be implemented, with controversial plans to waive national insurance for workers employed by big Indian businesses sent to the UK still the subject of a forthcoming consultation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the business delegation is likely to use the trip to lobby the prime minister not to put more taxes on them in the November budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sir Keir has already turned down the wish of some CEOs on the trip to increase the number of visas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking to journalists on the plane on the way out, he said: “The visa situation hasn’t changed with the free trade agreement, and therefore we didn’t open up more visas.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n He told business that it wasn’t right to focus on visas, telling them: “The issue is not about visas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It’s about business-to-business engagement and investment and jobs and prosperity coming into the UK.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n No birthday wishes for Putin<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The prime minister sidestepped questions about Mr Modi’s support of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, whom he wished a happy birthday on social media. US President Donald Trump has increased tariffs against India, alleging that Indian purchases of Russian oil are supporting the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked about Mr Modi wishing Mr Putin happy birthday, and whether he had leverage to talk to Mr Modi about his relationship with Russia, Sir Keir sidestepped the question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Just for the record, I haven’t… sent birthday congratulations to Putin, nor am I going to do so,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I don’t suppose that comes as a surprise. In relation to energy, and clamping down on Russian energy, our focus as the UK, and we’ve been leading on this, is on the\u00a0shadow fleet<\/strong>, because we think that’s the most effective way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We’ve been one of the lead countries in relation to the shadow fleet, working with other countries.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n PM: We aren’t forcing wealthy people out<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sir Keir refused to give business leaders any comfort about the budget and tax hikes, despite saying in his conference speech that he recognised the last budget had an impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “What I acknowledged in my conference, and I’ve acknowledged a number of times now, is we asked a lot of business in the last budget. It’s important that I acknowledge that, and I also said that that had helped us with growth and stabilising the economy,” he added. “I’m not going to make any comment about the forthcoming budget, as you would expect; no prime minister or chancellor ever does.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked if too many wealthy people were leaving London, he said: “No. We keep a careful eye on the figures, as you would expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The measures that we took at the last budget are bringing a considerable amount of revenue into the government which is being used to fix things like the NHS. We keep a careful eye on the figures.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sir Keir Starmer has said the government will not relax visa rules for India, as he embarks upon a two-day trade trip to Mumbai. The prime minister touched down this morning with dozens of Britain’s most prominent business people, including bosses from BA, Barclays, Standard Chartered, BT and Rolls-Royce. The first full-blown trade mission to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":23903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8176,8713,75,5307,5249,1425,5196,5494,11954,8123,2264,6543,12613,12773,5440,8342,9343,7407,5205,8331,3874,3684,11289,6479,3570,5441,6830,2627,3805,3174,71,8383,3457,5217,5076,5349,10041,8412,12244,1502,6206,1568,10329,12864,12605,5180,6348,11331,2858,5647,6585,694,5251],"class_list":["post-46797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-barclays","tag-birthday","tag-brexit","tag-britain","tag-budget","tag-chancellor","tag-economy","tag-energy","tag-engagement","tag-eye","tag-government","tag-growth","tag-happy-birthday","tag-increase","tag-india","tag-indian","tag-investment","tag-jobs","tag-july","tag-keir-starmer","tag-lead","tag-london","tag-modi","tag-narendra-modi","tag-nhs","tag-oil","tag-plane","tag-pm","tag-president","tag-prime-minister","tag-putin","tag-revenue","tag-russia","tag-russian","tag-sir-keir-starmer","tag-social-media","tag-speech","tag-standard-chartered","tag-tariffs","tag-tax","tag-taxes","tag-theresa-may","tag-trade","tag-trade-deal","tag-uk","tag-ukraine","tag-us","tag-us-president","tag-us-president-donald-trump","tag-visa","tag-visas","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-war"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46799,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46797\/revisions\/46799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Sir](\"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/25\/10\/768x432\/skynews-keir-starmer-heathrow_7045132.jpg?20251007154127\")
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