Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Offord of Garvel

Thursday 20th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that. In fact, the Department for Business and Trade, being ahead of the game as always, is already thinking about how to get utilisation of this trade deal done, to get through to all the regions and nations of the United Kingdom, to make sure in particular that all of our SME community has access to this deal—for example, Malaysia is a country we have never had a trade deal with before, and we now have tariff-free trade with Malaysia. A particular focus of mine, as the export Minister, will be to increase the level of access to our SMEs, because these are real companies, employing real people in real places,

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister not agree that there is a geostrategic aspect to this agreement? By almost every measure—investment and everything—the UK has more involvement in that region than any other EU country. We also run global shipping from the UK. In that sense, there is a geostrategic aspect, which is to be welcomed. Does the Minister agree?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

The noble Lord will be able to comment much more on the geopolitical aspect than I can, because I come to this looking at it very much as a trade deal. When I was introduced to the deal, I looked at the map and could see that we were nowhere near the Indo-Pacific. The fact that we have come into that deal must surely be because we have such extensive reach in the region, and therefore in addition to trade there will be a knock-on effect for our geopolitical security, I am sure.

Scottish Independence

Debate between Lord West of Spithead and Lord Offord of Garvel

Wednesday 7th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

As we have said many times in this Chamber, the Scottish people had their say in 2014. Some 3.6 million Scots voted: 84% of the electorate. It was the highest turnout anywhere other than Australia, where it is compulsory to vote. In it, 2 million voted to stay and 1.6 million voted to leave. That is a decisive result.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that one exemplar of the SNP’s capability in economic and industrial terms is shipbuilding? We have provided incredible orders on the Clyde and at Babcock for our Navy, yet the only area in which the SNP has been involved are some ferries which are something like three years overdue and had to have windows painted on them because holes had not been cut. It is now thinking of building them somewhere else. Does the Minister agree that that is an exemplar of what the SNP can achieve?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

The noble Lord has great knowledge of these matters. The UK Government have just announced £4 billion of new shipbuilding orders coming to the Clyde and Rosyth. It has been noted that in the last five years the naval shipyards in Scotland have built four frigates while the SNP cannot get two rusting ferries off the dock. It is very clear that we have great competence and strength in our naval shipyards. Sadly, that is not the case within the Scottish Government’s remit.