Electronic Trade Documents Bill [HL]

Earl of Lindsay Excerpts

Second reading committee
Monday 7th November 2022 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Lindsay (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Committee for the opportunity to make a short contribution in the gap. I greatly welcome the Electronic Trade Documents Bill and, in doing so, declare an interest as chairman of the government-appointed national accreditation body, the United Kingdom Accreditation Service—UKAS. It is in that role particularly that I commend this Bill for the downstream benefits it will bring. They include greater transparency, digital verification and mutual recognition of third-party testing, inspection and certification—all of which are critical to reducing technical barriers to UK and global trade.

More generally, in echoing my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, I welcome the Bill’s purpose to make trade more efficient and sustainable, as well as the important opportunities it will enable in respect of international co-operation and interoperability in digital trade.

Our current paper-based processes are part of a labour-intensive trade system that will benefit from moving to quicker, digitally based transactions. This will be especially welcomed by SMEs, which are often affected most by the complexity and associated costs of trading systems that are heavily paper based. They are likely to be among the largest beneficiaries of a move to digitally based transactions. I wish the Bill well through its further stages.