Future Free Trade Agreements

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Catherine West

Thursday 21st February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner]

I certainly do agree with my hon. Friend. Some in the Secretary of State’s party have been claiming that no deal would be better than a bad deal. Others have been claiming that going on to no deal would be no problem at all, that we would be trading on WTO terms. I am sure that she also wonders, if working on WTO terms is as good as those Conservative Members believe it to be, what the green sunlit uplands are that the Secretary of State is speaking about in terms of getting rid of the WTO terms in all these new trade agreements. I think he was the one who referred to having it both ways earlier, but it rather seems to me as if he is doing just that.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State’s reference to the sunny uplands of post-Brexit trade rather prompts the question why the Government Benches are not a little fuller today. Would my hon. Friend like to comment?

[Barry Gardiner]

There is no need for me to comment. The empty Benches are screaming my hon. Friend’s point louder than I could amplify it.

Trade Bill

Debate between Barry Gardiner and Catherine West

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:

“this House recognises that on leaving the European Union, whether or not the UK concludes a new long-term customs union with the EU, it will need effective legislation to implement agreements with partner countries corresponding to international trade agreements of the European Union in place before the UK’s exit, to implement procurement obligations arising from the UK becoming a member of the Government Procurement Agreement in its own right, to establish a Trade Remedies Authority to deliver the new UK trade remedies framework, and to establish powers for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to collect and disclose data on exporters, but declines to give a Second Reading to the Trade Bill because it fails to set out proper procedures for Parliamentary consultation, scrutiny, debate and approval of future international trade agreements, fails to protect the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty in the implementation of those trade agreements previously negotiated by the European Union and in respect of changes to existing government procurement regulations arising from the UK’s or other countries’ accession to the Government Procurement Agreement, fails to establish sufficient scrutiny procedures to replace those that have pertained while the UK has been a member of the European Union, fails to guarantee that European Union standards and rights will be protected in future trade agreements, and fails to render the Trade Remedies Authority answerable to Parliament or representative of the full range of stakeholders.”

May I take this opportunity to wish you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and all those in this place who in their various ways serve the public, a very happy new year?

Our country is in the throes of an extraordinary change in our constitutional arrangements. At this stage, no one can be entirely certain what the structure of our future relations with the European Union will be, but the Labour party is clear that the country cannot be left without the capacity to defend our manufacturing industry against unfair trading practices. Indeed, many Opposition Members will wish that the Government had been more keenly aware of the need for strong action on trade defence when our steel industry was put into crisis by the unfair dumping of Chinese steel, or when the United States took entirely unjustified action against Bombardier in Northern Ireland.

The need for a Bill to establish a trade remedies authority, to establish our independent membership of the WTO government procurement agreement, to enable us to maintain strong trading ties with partner countries that have had historical agreements with us through the EU, and to establish the power to collect and share trade information—all are uncontroversial requirements. However, the way in which the Government have gone about this process is not uncontroversial; it is quite the opposite.

On the face of it, this is a modest little Bill that has a lot to be modest about. The four things that the Bill does, it does badly. But what is worse is that the one thing it absolutely should have done well—namely, to provide appropriate parliamentary scrutiny and oversight of our country’s trade agreements—it fails to do entirely.

We were repeatedly told that the Trade Bill would provide the basis for the country’s future trade policy once we had left the EU. To quote the Queen’s Speech policy paper from last June:

“The Bill will put in place the essential and necessary legislative framework to allow the UK to operate its own independent trade policy upon exit from the European Union.”

It does not do that. Instead, it represents yet another attempt by the Government to appropriate to themselves powers that should by rights be afforded to Parliament.

I must acknowledge my bias: I voted to remain in the EU and I think our country has embarked on an act of economic self-harm. But I am 100% certain that those of our fellow citizens who did vote to leave the EU did not vote for sovereign powers to be taken away from the bureaucrats, as they regarded them, in Brussels, only to be handed over to the Secretary of State for International Trade. They thought—indeed, they were told—that we were taking back control to our sovereign Parliament, yet the Bill contains Henry VIII powers that explicitly give Ministers the right to amend primary legislation.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is somewhat anomalous that for the past 18 months we have talked about nothing but the sovereignty of Parliament, yet we as parliamentarians now have to beg for a role in our future trade arrangements?

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend makes an entirely fair point, and it is a criticism that I hope will be prosecuted fully in Committee.