Secretary of State for International Trade: Visits

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many countries the Secretary of State for International Trade has visited since the referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Trade (Baroness Fairhead) (Con)]

My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for International Trade has undertaken 56 visits to 35 different countries since the EU referendum in June 2016.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that I have also visited one of those countries—New Zealand? While, of course, it would be willing to agree a trade deal with the United Kingdom if we leave the European Union, its priority is a trade deal with the European Union and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In fact, most of the people we met in New Zealand said, “Why on earth are you leaving the European Union?” Why do we not take their advice and let Liam Fox off his wild goose chase?

[Baroness Fairhead]

New Zealand is indeed one of the countries that we hope to have an early free trade agreement with. It is one of the nations with which we have trade and investment working groups. We have 14 of those and 21 countries are participating. It is clear that they are engaging with us. We are working with them very actively and they are looking to work with us on areas and sectors. The noble Lord shakes his head but I know that these trade and investment working groups are having an effect and people are starting to focus on specific areas where we will be able to start negotiating. As the noble Lord knows, we are unable to negotiate any future free trade agreements while we remain a member of the EU.

Brexit: World Trade Organization Rules

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Price]

I am aware that Turkey has arrangements whereby agricultural goods and food products are excluded from the goods provision, but that obviously does not include services.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not becoming increasingly clear that day by day and week by week, Nigel Farage, Michael Gove, and to be fair, Gisela Stuart, have got us into an unholy mess? We do not know where we are on trade, on the movement of labour—or indeed on anything. Would not the billions of pounds we are spending on trying to organise this Brexit be better spent sorting out the crisis in social care?

[Lord Price]

The people of the United Kingdom were very clear when they voted on 23 June. Harping back does none of us any good and it does not do the United Kingdom any good. We need to move forward in a united way to get the best deal for the United Kingdom.