Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) for enabling us to debate this issue. I am very glad that we are having the debate, and that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise will be responding to it.

I have a great deal of sympathy with the motion. While I think that we need accountability when it comes to one of the biggest trade deals in history—if not the biggest—and that the House should provide that accountability, I also think that few significant issues in politics today have been so poorly considered in the public realm. That may be due to a lack of knowledge for which, perhaps, we are all responsible. We, as parliamentarians, should play our part in trying to inform and educate the public as well as listening to them, so that everyone in the country understands the true nature of this deal. However, there has also been a huge amount of misinformation and distortion on the part of certain groups, and that has led to a general sense of concern. Like other Members, I have received hundreds of emails and letters about this issue over the last year or so. I believe that the concern is unnecessary, because there is far less to fear than those groups suggest, but a more important consideration is that it obscures, purposefully, the huge opportunity that this deal presents to all of us.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I think that the hon. Gentleman put his finger on it when he used the phrase “far less to fear”. He said that people did not understand the deal, but that is because it has not been properly explained to them. Some of them fear that there is a Trojan horse, but whether there is or not, we cannot move forward without consensus among the public, whether they are worried about jobs, about the environment, or about the precise contents of TTIP. If people do not understand something like this in a representative democracy such as ours, what can we do?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Gentleman has made a good point. That is why I am pleased to see that the Minister is present, and why I was pleased when, on the occasion of our last debate on this subject—in 2014, I believe—my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) responded on behalf of the Government. I want more Ministers to convey the case for TTIP to the public, engaging in a genuine, informed debate, and trying to sell the deal in a rational way. At present, it is being led by groups who have come out with some pretty poor-quality public discourse.

Some of the emails that I received this week were fairly ill informed, to say the least. I suspect that they were generated by 38 Degrees. They were all the same, apart from the fact that the adjectives varied: the deal was variously described as dodgy, dangerous, evil and sinister. There could not be a more pathetic quality of debate. Let me say to those behind the emails, “For goodness sake, have the strength of your convictions: raise the quality of debate and argue rationally, rather being so immature.”

The Government must lead the debate. They must support a project which I believe has huge potential to build transatlantic links to bring Britain and Europe closer to America, and to create a huge and important new free trade area and myriad opportunities for jobs and growth. We are not necessarily talking about large corporations; as was rightly pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), this is about businesses both large and small. Only last week, I met representatives of some businesses that will benefit from this kind of deal. They were not large corporations, but small and medium-sized businesses that were trying to make a living and create jobs.