Cameron turns on the charm for jobs mission in ‘responsible’ India

Prime Minister David Cameron has mounted a charm offensive on India, allowing it access to British nuclear expertise for the first time and sharply criticising Pakistan’s record on terrorism.

He called yesterday for a new era of co-operation between the UK and India as he led a delegation of British ministers and business executives to Bangalore and, later, New Delhi.

Appealing for deeper trade ties that would fuel jobs back home, he also sought to demonstrate that India stood to gain from a closer relationship with Britain.

His visit coincided with the announcement that, in future, export licences for civil nuclear expertise and technology to India would be approved.

Whitehall has traditionally vetoed such co-operation because India has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or separated out its civil and military programmes.

The move will not only please the Indians but UK firms involved in nuclear research, like Rolls-Royce and Serco, stand to benefit too.

Mr Cameron also sought to address Indian concerns about terrorism, particularly from its neighbour, Pakistan.

In forthright comments that angered Islamabad, the prime minister warned that Pakistan must not be allowed to “promote the export of terror” to the world.

He said he would be raising the issue with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when they hold talks in Delhi today.

Mr Cameron’s spokeswoman insisted he was talking about Pakistan as a country, not its government.

But in a later interview, he said: “It is an issue where we have to make sure that the Pakistani authorities are not looking two ways.”

He described India, by contrast, as “responsible” and backed calls for it to be awarded a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

A new agreement between BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and Indian aerospace company Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), to provide India with 57 more Hawk jets, was also announced.

Visiting HAL’s Hawk facility in Bangalore, Mr Cameron hailed the £700million deal as an “outstanding example of India-UK defence and industrial partnership”.

Areas where further co- operation was needed included defence technology, counter-terrorism and climate change, he said.

The two countries are to help each other in terms of policing and security at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and 2012 Olympics that India and the UK are respectively hosting.

There were even reports in the Indian press, unconfirmed by British sources, that the Royal Navy and its Indian counterpart were embarking on submarine war games off the coast of Goa.

The prime minister said he wanted to make the UK “the partner of choice” for India.

His 68-strong delegation, which flew out on Tuesday, includes six other ministers including Foreign Secretary William Hague, Chancellor George Osborne and Business Secretary Vince Cable.