Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

There can be no greater or more persistent champion of UK-Pakistan relations than my hon. Friend. The Government remain committed to increasing trade and investment with the Asia-Pacific region. We have signed a free trade agreement with Japan, are negotiating FTAs with Australia and New Zealand and hope to be able to apply for formal accession to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, as already discussed. At the end of the transition period, the UK will put in place its own generalised scheme of preferences, and my hon. Friend will be delighted to learn that Pakistan will continue to receive the same market access to the UK next year. The scheme will help British and Pakistani businesses to continue trading seamlessly after we end the transition period.

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

What assessment she has made of the potential effect on UK trade policy of the outcome of the 2020 US presidential election.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

What assessment she has made of the potential effect on UK trade policy of the outcome of the 2020 US presidential election.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne [V]]

But if the Secretary of State’s global Britain is to mean anything, we must not put all our eggs in one basket. I think it fair to say that, in recent times, the Secretary of State has bet everything on securing a trade deal with the Trump Administration. She might want to conclude a deal with Canada, but the Prime Minister there said that the Secretary of State had lacked the “bandwidth” to focus on getting a deal with his country. Does she intend to ignore that criticism and continue making a deal with the US her dominant priority? If so, what confidence does she have that the Biden Administration will feel the same way in terms of their own priorities for trade?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We have now secured trade deals with 52 countries. We have secured a deal with Japan that goes beyond and above the EU’s agreements, we are working on accession to the trans-Pacific partnership and we are negotiating with Australia and New Zealand, so we are by no means entirely focused on the US, but it is our largest single country trading partner. I am always struck by the anti-Americanism among Opposition Members. They simply do not understand that these deals are incredibly important for British business. As for the comments from overseas Governments on our trade negotiations, it is interesting that Labour Members simply like to repeat their “lines to take”. Maybe they need to think of some of their own ideas.