Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (EUC Report)

Baroness Quin Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Quin (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, very much welcome this debate and the fact that it is taking place shortly after the publication of our report, which means that the timing is appropriate. As a member of the sub-committee, I should also like to say how much I enjoyed working on the report with colleagues. There was a constructive and friendly atmosphere in our deliberations, perhaps in no small way due to the calm, wise and always good-humoured chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat.

It is a good report that deals with a wide-ranging subject. It has a good balance between an overview of the situation and a lot of detail and examples from the various sectors likely to form part of the TTIP. The committee staff certainly deserve thanks for marshalling this huge amount of information and presenting it in a logical and readable way. I hope the report will be read in Parliament and outside, and by those involved in the negotiations.

As the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, has said, the significance of this agreement is huge. It has been compared to the achievement of the European single market, and in some ways it has obvious parallels with the work that was done on completing the single market. However, I know concerns have been expressed about it as well, and I should like to comment on these, as well as giving some examples of where I hope and expect the UK will do well out of the agreement.

First, the partnership is still at an early stage. I was quite taken aback to receive an e-mail from a friend in Germany, urging me to vote against TTIP through an online petition. I think that was partly because of the reasons the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, has already explained, which are currently part of the political climate in Germany. However, signing a petition at this stage, when one has very little idea of the details of the agreement, does not seem at all a good idea to me. We certainly need to see what comes out of the agreement before deciding whether it is something that is worthy of support.

However, concerns have been raised. My noble friend Lord Rosser, in winding up the debate on the gracious Speech last Wednesday, asked the Government to give assurances that there would be no weakening of employment conditions and the working environment as a result of this agreement. Concerns have also been expressed about environmental and phytosanitary standards. These are important issues to which attention needs to be given. However, I was very glad to see, in the excellent briefing pack prepared by the House of Lords Library for this debate, a publication from the European Commission that is more recent than our report, entitled TTIP Explained. It already has some reassurances on those issues. For example, it says very robustly,

“we need to ensure that our high standards in the areas of the environment, health and safety, protection of privacy as well as workers’ and consumer rights are maintained. Our high levels of protection are not, therefore, negotiable”.

That is an important statement to bear in mind.

Concerns were also expressed in the course of our inquiry about how much democratic oversight of the process there was. Indeed, one of our witnesses felt that the European Parliament in particular had influence over this process only at the very last stage. However, I do not believe that is true. The trade committee of the European Parliament has already issued papers and reports about TTIP, which have been presented to the Parliament as a whole. The European Parliament, like any other, has plenty of opportunities to initiate debates and questions—questions to the Commission and questions to the Council of Ministers—so parliamentarians who are interested in this issue will have many opportunities to raise it in the course of the negotiations. I certainly hope that will be echoed in work being carried out in national parliaments as well. Perhaps the sub-committee has set the ball rolling in this respect, but I am very pleased that there is an all-party group across both Houses that is very active in consideration of issues to do with TTIP.

I should also like to praise Commissioner De Gucht for his openness, both in his dealings with the committee and in his meetings with representatives of various business and consumer organisations and trade unions, which have a natural interest in TTIP. He has been very open with us in particular, and I hope that the new Commission will continue very much in the same spirit.

As to other concerns, one matter of considerable discussion in the committee was the concern about the investor state dispute settlement arrangements and whether these might have a harmful effect on Governments seeking to protect the public nature of the services that they were offering to their citizens. The Commission document is quite robust on this particular issue. It refers to the carve-out that already exists in international trade to enable the European Union to keep monopolies for the provision of public services at all administrative levels, including local councils, and says that similar concerns have been satisfactorily met in the trade agreement being negotiated with Canada. I hope that this is the case. It is certainly an issue that needs watching very closely during the course of the negotiations.

I turn briefly to some of the areas where I think there should be gains. The chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, mentioned the automotive industry, and certainly that industry has a great deal to gain from regulatory alignment and cutting the costs of production through agreement with the United States on a whole range of standards, without safety standards being jeopardised, which is obviously an important consideration. I agree with the chairman’s comments on financial services. This is potentially a very important area for the UK and I am interested to hear from the Minister what progress is being made with talking to the United States on this issue. It would be a great pity if potential gains to a sector where the UK has a lot to give were undermined by a very hostile US attitude.

Agriculture is also an area of interest to me. I hope that these negotiations will allow a resumption of the trade in beef and lamb and in some of the major agricultural products and processed foods in which we have a huge interest as a country. However, this agreement also has the potential to benefit small and medium-sized enterprises in the agricultural sector. One example I remember giving in committee concerned my frustration at not being able to send some excellent Northumberland cheese to friends in the United States. It is true that small speciality food producers find doing this extremely difficult, partly because of the expense of dealing with the FDA in the United States and getting agreement so that they can export their products, and partly because of the bureaucratic costs involved, both to the company wishing to export from here and to the recipients at the other end. It is a very frustrating situation. I can cite many other examples, including cake producers and speciality food producers, from regions up and down the country that have this problem, which I hope will be addressed in the course of these negotiations. Small and medium-sized enterprises, particularly those in rural areas, stand to benefit if we can get mutually agreed standards and cut bureaucracy and expense.

Finally, as important as the agreement itself is the fact that it is the beginning of a process for continued and permanent dialogue on regulatory issues between the two sides. That kind of process is vital, rather than simply relying on occasional trade talks or disruptive negotiations. That, for me, is one of the big potential gains of the TTIP arrangement. I believe that the United Kingdom has a particular role, being both an active member of the European Union and very close to the United States on many issues. Therefore, I wish the Government—and, if I may say so, their replacement Government after the next election—every success in pursuing these negotiations and, we hope, achieving a deal that is good for Britain, good for the European Union, good for the United States and good for world trade.