Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Lawlor and Lord Lansley

Report stage
Tuesday 16th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, while I have enormous sympathy with the purpose of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, he has explained perfectly clearly that the CPTPP members would all have to agree not just that China would join the CPTPP but that a negotiation with China would be entered into. The benchmarks against which that would be measured are laid out in an annexe to the CPTPP, and there is a great distance between where China is today and the benchmarks that would have to be met, so I see no immediate process for that.

The terms of the amendment, in creating a different legal process for the accession of one potential applicant economy as compared with any other applicant economy, represent an unwelcome position for us to have taken. It might be construed as unwelcome in other countries as well; it seems to me that it would set a bad precedent. The question that would be put to the Government is what position we should take as to whether a commission should be established to look at an aspirant economy, and the United Kingdom Government could take a position on that. While I join my noble friend in resisting the amendment, it would be helpful if he could say that there was nothing to stop the Government from potentially laying a Statement under CRaG for that purpose and asking the relevant committees to comment on it.

That would not enable Parliament to veto it—indeed, a veto would be unwelcome at that stage because it would be a decision whether or not to enter into a negotiation—but, as in other cases, the Government would be well advised to take full account of what Parliament might say in relation to any such notification and any such report by the International Agreements Committee here and the Business and Trade Committee in the other place. I wonder whether my noble friend might suggest that, if there were such a potential decision to be made by the UK Government, they could go through that process and it would be perfectly reasonable for them to do so.

[Baroness Lawlor (Con)]

My Lords, I am sympathetic to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. I approach it from a somewhat different angle, on which he himself touched, which is the use of economic tools to gain hegemony geographically. We are talking about the wide area of influence that China already commands, not just in the Indo-Pacific. Already 20% of Chinese goods are destined for CPTPP countries; 50% of them are intermediate products. Of those countries, Malaysia, Vietnam and Mexico have the highest level of imports from China. When we join, that figure will go up because 13% of our imports come from China.

Whatever the outcome of the decision on this amendment, I urge the Government to consider very carefully some arrangement so that there can be collaboration between Parliament and government on the very important business aim of the UK, which is to prevent economic tools being used against UK interests, including those to which the noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred.