Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (Accession)

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Japan is a very important partner of the UK, and we are separately negotiating our bilateral trade agreement, but when I spoke to Minister Motegi, who is responsible for negotiating on Japan’s behalf, he was very clear that he supported the UK’s accession to CPTPP. We are also pursuing accession with Australia and New Zealand. These bilateral partnerships are a way of accessing that wider arrangement in Asia- Pacific. My hon. Friend is right—there are huge export opportunities for Britain into Japan and huge investment opportunities for British firms into Japan and for Japanese firms into the UK.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab) [V]]

I too welcome the negotiations the Secretary of State has announced with Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand is an interesting case, because CPTPP includes provisions for an investor-state dispute settlement, allowing major corporations to challenge the ability of Governments to regulate in areas such as environmental protection. Will she follow the example of New Zealand and seek to exclude the UK from this mechanism?

[Elizabeth Truss]

In the negotiations, we are very clear that we will not allow any agreement to interfere with our right to regulate in areas such as the environment, food standards and public services such as the national health service. That is a clear red line for us.