Britain and Germany are bound together by history, values and a shared vision of a stable and prosperous Europe

Last Wednesday, I requested a Westminster Hall debate on British-German relations. I did so, as the German Bundestag had its first reading in ratifying the Kensington treaty on the following day. That treaty is an important step in rebuilding our relationship with Germany after the post-Brexit negativity from the previous Government. The relationship has a long and difficult history but in times of increased international pressure it is more important than ever.

Like many others, I took advantage of an opportunity to live and work in Germany that is not available to young people today because of the folly of Brexit. Today, there are around 6,780 people from Germany studying in the UK and 2,074 Brits studying in Germany. However, they are students, not workers with freedom of movement, so it is a different scenario nowadays.
Naturally, relationships of this sort have their ups and downs; in recent history, Brexit stands out. That decision and the way it was conducted severely damaged people-to-people trust; it has weakened longstanding partnerships in private, public and economic affairs and made cross-border trade much more difficult, particularly trade conducted by small and medium-sized enterprises. It will, in my view, take a long time to mend the damage caused by Brexit. It is also a reminder that trust, once lost, is slow and difficult to rebuild.

Across British society, there is a wish for a closer relationship with the EU and with Germany. Recent polling shows that close to 60% of Britons believe that it was a mistake to leave the European Union.

The momentum towards a closer relationship with Europe is driven forward by this Labour Government. From our first day in office, we have worked on rebuilding the relationship with our European partners, be that through rejoining the Erasmus+ scheme, which gives young people across the UK and EU the opportunity to study and train on either side of the channel, or through the range of bilateral and multilateral agreements that this Government have signed and which lay out the road maps to further collaboration.

For example, the signing of the Trinity House agreement in October 2024 represents the most significant deepening of bilateral defence ties with Germany in decades. This closer collaboration was underlined by the first state visit by a German President in 27 years last December.

As the Prime Minister outlined in his keynote speech at last week’s Munich Security Conference, in a crisis such as the current one, we have to stand together. We are doing that through agreements such as the Trinity House agreement and the Kensington treaty.

As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent horrors, there is growing awareness that we need to be able to defend ourselves and that it is not enough to contract our security out to the United States. This means that there is no British security without Europe and no European security without Britain.

Through the coalition of the willing, Germany, Great Britain and France have a wish to drive forward the defence of Ukraine. Utilising the DIAMOND initiative, the UK and Germany, along with other NATO allies, are bolstering NATO’s eastern flank. Our shared values and the ideas defining that relationship are not universal and the knowledge that they might need to be defended by force has driven that paradigm shift. In Germany, we have a partner on whom we can rely, come what may. That is why the Kensington treaty is so important. It sets in stone the indispensability of this relationship and how we can further develop co-operation between our two countries.

The other important aspect of this relationship is our trading and economic partnership. Germany is the UK’s second largest trading partner. Trade to Germany accounts for 8.1% of total British trade, and after the low of Brexit, bilateral trade is improving, with a 1.4% increase in trade last year. There are more than 1,600 German companies operating in the UK. They include industry giants such as BMW, Bosch and Deutsche Bank. German companies bring £50 billion of foreign direct investment into the UK, while British companies invested over £40 billion in Germany last year alone. That important relationship can be seen in much of our day-to-day life. For instance, the 94 new state-of-the-art Piccadilly line trains are produced by Siemens Mobility in East Yorkshire.

The numbers convey a larger picture: the flow of products and ideas; the connection between small family-run businesses in both countries; the co-operation of industry that employs tens of thousands; and a synergy that is not only mutually beneficial but actively combines the greatest parts of our two countries.

In conclusion, the Kensington treaty is more than a diplomatic document; it is a recognition of what we already know: Britain and Germany are bound together by history, values and commerce, and a shared vision of a stable and prosperous Europe.

Brexit was a serious setback, and we should not pretend otherwise, but it did not sever the ties that matter most, and this Government are working hard to rebuild what was damaged.