Trade: Standards

Earl of Lindsay Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Lindsay (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady McIntosh for securing this debate. It is a timely reminder of the role that standards and the UK’s broader quality infrastructure need to play in future trade negotiations. A trade standards commission, with the full involvement of government and key stakeholders, would be one means of ensuring that the strategic and economic importance of continuing high standards, and their effective implementation and enforcement, are central to all trade negotiations and future trading arrangements. Confidence in the safety and quality of goods and services is an essential element of international trade. That matters now, but it will matter even more so after the end of the year.

The Government’s manifesto rightly promised that

“in all of our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.”

That undertaking was recently reiterated by my right honourable friend the International Trade Secretary when she set out the priorities for future trade deals.

The United Kingdom already has an enviable reputation for high-quality standards in these areas, achieved through the support of successive Governments for a national framework of standards, measurement and accreditation—collectively referred to as the United Kingdom Quality Infrastructure, or UKQI. I should declare an interest, as the chair of the United Kingdom’s national accreditation body, UKAS—the UK Accreditation Service—which is a key component of the UKQI.

To maximise the effectiveness of standards, their implementation needs to be underpinned by robust verification and certification systems. As the national accreditation body, UKAS is firmly established as part of the UK’s regulatory regime in a wide range of areas. These include the sectors that a trade standards commission, and others, would see as priorities, such as animal welfare, environmental management, farm assurance and food safety.

It is also important that standards and accreditation are global activities, and UKAS, as the national accreditation body, and the British Standards Institution, or BSI, as the UK’s national standards body, operate within an international framework. This mutual recognition of standards and accredited conformity assessment between trading partners underpins many international trade arrangements.

Accreditation is also recognised by the WTO’s Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement, and by bilateral trade agreements. That is an important tool that can be utilised to improve competitiveness and facilitate global trade. It ought, therefore, to be an important part of a trade standards commission’s work to look at how accreditation and linked mutual recognition arrangements that underpin standards can be utilised, protected and, where appropriate, enhanced as part of future trade negotiations.