Protecting Britain’s Steel Industry

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab) [V]]

One of the reasons that I spent so many hours in Committee opposing the Trade Bill in the previous Parliament was to avoid precisely the sort of nonsense that we are discussing today. The recommendation by the TRA to remove safeguards on nine out of 19 product categories takes us back five years to the crisis that we experienced in 2016. It will leave half of steel products exposed to a flood of imports. We know this because prior to the introduction of the current steel safeguards, UK imports of steel increased by 25% between 2013 and 2017, severely undermining our own industry.

The Government failed to ensure that the TRA would protect and defend British producers. They engineered the membership of the body such that not only does the Secretary of State maintain full control of who is appointed and what its remit will be, but no voice can even be raised to temper the Government’s dogmatic fixation on what their own warped vision of free trade happens to be.

Labour tabled a series of amendments to ensure a level playing field for British industry. The Government voted down every single one of those amendments—and now where are we? We are left with a whole industry that is rightly angry and confused: confused as to why trade unions and employers were not consulted at any stage in respect of the TRA recommendations; confused as to why the TRA has shown such a lack of understanding about the interconnectedness of the industry, as assessment of product categories separately cannot provide an accurate picture of the threat of an increase in imports, nor the damage that it would cause; confused as to why out-of-date data was used that does not include volumes of smaller imports, where there was an increase in 17 of the 19 product categories that the TRA has simply not accounted for; and confused as to why, at a time when the EU and US are maintaining their safeguards, we are stripping ours away.

This decision will leave our market open to import surges just as the sector recovers from covid-19, and at a time when our exports to the EU and US will still be subject to tariffs and quotas. It is reported that the EU and the US are in bilateral negotiations to end tariffs on steel products with a deadline of the end of the year. So, well done to the Secretary of State—it looks as if she has engineered a situation where our steel exporters will not only be undermined in their own domestic market by cheap subsidised steel from China and the far east; they will also face a 25% tariff to enter the US, just as their EU competitors will face no barriers at all. The incompetence is staggering.

The sector employs 33,000 people. It is a sector that communities and towns are built around. It is a sector that is highly innovative and has continually bounced back from crisis after crisis—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his speech. We must move on because I need to get as many people in as possible.

Continuity Trade Agreements: Parliamentary Scrutiny

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Services represents about 79% of our GDP and 80% of our employment. The UK, as we know, is a world leader in tech and digital and far ahead of our closest European competitors, France and Germany. We are one of the world’s leading international financial services centres, with best in class industry, infrastructure, talent and expertise. The recently announced deal with Japan goes further than the EU deal when it comes to services, particularly financial services.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Minister knows, but did not say, that the current CRaG process was put in place when many other layers of democratic scrutiny were applied to international treaties through the EU, but those layers are now gone. Now that his Department has failed to conclude the roll-over agreements, does he accept that democratic scrutiny needs to reflect not just the convenience of Government, but the proper oversight and challenge of Parliament? Or will he only change his view when he finds himself in opposition?

[Greg Hands]

I think the hon. Gentleman is operating under the misconception that the Government do not want Parliament interested in trade and in trade deals. We are constantly at this Dispatch Box—I, the Secretary of State and the rest of the ministerial team—talking about trade and trade deals. We welcome all the additional parliamentary scrutiny. I remind him that the CRaG process he talks about was set up under the last Labour Government. We have gone further in terms of the reports that we publish and the involvement of Select Committees in both Houses of this Parliament.

Trade Bill

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

rose—

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Greg Hands]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner)—it is great to see him back in trade.

[Barry Gardiner]

The Minister talks of CRAG as if it is a process under which this Parliament has any power. He knows that it is the Government who enable Parliament to have a debate whereby it could vote against what is tabled under the CRAG process. He must look again at the way in which real scrutiny and accountability can be brought to bear in the way that the hon. Member for Huntingdon suggests.

[Greg Hands]

It is good to see the hon. Gentleman back. I remember that he was originally a Blairite Minister in Tony Blair’s Government, and it has been really instructive to see the journey that he has been on over some time. I saw him take the seat in the extreme corner of the Chamber earlier and thought, “Not only has he taken on the views of the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), but he has now even taken his previous seat.” The hon. Gentleman voted for CRAG in 2010, as did I. [Interruption.] We both voted for CRAG in 2010. CRAG allows Parliament to block a trade deal. It allows Parliament to block international treaties. That was the intention—his Government designed it in that way to give Parliament the ability to block an international agreement, and that remains the case today.

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[Greg Hands]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct that our scrutiny offer compares very favourably with Australia’s and New Zealand’s and is at least equal to Canada’s. He is right in other regards as well. Some of these amendments would obligate the Government to publish the text after the end of each negotiating round. At the moment, we publish a written ministerial statement. The idea that we publish the interim text with the United States so that Australia, New Zealand, Japan and all our partners could see it when this Government—this country—are undergoing simultaneous negotiation with different partners is not a sensible way of proceeding.

[Barry Gardiner]

Will the Minister give way?

[Greg Hands]

I am going to make more progress.

This Government understand the desire of Parliament to have effective scrutiny of our FTA programme. That is why we have gone above and beyond the baseline provided by CRAG in committing to publishing comprehensive information ahead of entering into negotiations with partner countries. We have already done this—

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[Bill Esterson]

I will give way in a moment. Our amendments attempt to rectify the Bill’s serious shortcomings and the lack of accountability. We were promised a modern framework for international trade negotiations in the Queen’s Speech. The Bill was supposed to be the opportunity to deliver that framework. It does not. The Bill gives Ministers powers to make changes to retained EU law upstairs in a Committee of 17 MPs after a maximum debate of 90 minutes. These powers are retained for up to 10 years. That is quite some grab by the Executive—and it is far from the whole story, either.

The final text of an agreement depends on the Government granting debates to the Opposition during a 21-day period: something that did not always happen in the last Parliament. It relies on the Opposition using their limited opportunities to determine the agenda for such a debate. The Government should be holding the debate and a vote in both Houses as a matter of course. New clause 4 is an opportunity to address some of the democratic deficit in the Bill.

Only half of the 40 agreements covered by the Bill have been signed. We are told by the Minister that they have already been scrutinised by the European Union. But these are not the simple matters of continuity that the Minister would have us believe. Only three out of 20 existing mutual recognition agreements have been signed with Switzerland, our third largest non-EU trading partner. South Korea has only signed a temporary agreement and wants to start again, and a number of the remaining 20 are going to be completely new. Japan—new agreement; Turkey, our 10th largest non-EU trading partner is in a customs arrangement with the EU and is waiting for the UK to sign a free trade agreement with the EU. Canada is in no hurry to negotiate at all. As I said, these are far from being simple matters of continuity, which is why they need proper scrutiny.

[Barry Gardiner]

Does my hon. Friend share with me the sense that the Government have told us that they needed the Bill to be able to produce these roll-over agreements? Yet the Minister has stood at the Dispatch Box today and said that we have concluded 20 of these roll-over agreements. In fact, they have managed to do that without this Bill having passed into law. Is not what he is saying absolutely relevant? It is these future agreements that we need legislation for, and it should be proper legislation that sets out the framework under which this Parliament scrutinises what is going on.

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I pay tribute to his time as the shadow Secretary of State and the work he did on scrutinising and opposing this Bill first time around. He is also absolutely right to say that what we have heard already from the Minister just bears out everything that we have been saying for the past three years.

As I say, these are not simple matters of continuity. That is why we need proper scrutiny. The problems do not end there. The Bill will put in place the framework for a new generation of new agreements, including those with the United States and Australia, and the controversial so-called Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership: CPTPP.

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[Stewart Hosie]

I want to be careful in how I answer that. I hope the hon. Gentleman understands that perhaps those who can afford to shop in Waitrose—the Minister boasted in Committee that he was Waitrose fan—have a choice; perhaps somebody who is counting every penny and does not have access to anything other than the cheapest food is not in the position to make the same choice.

In effect, new clause 7 would do two things: it would affirm the UK’s rights and obligations under the SPS agreement—that is, the application of the sanitary and phytosanitary measures in annex 1A of the WTO agreement; and it would prohibit the import of food into the UK if standards in the exporting country were lower than those in force in the UK. I do not think there is anything contentious about that.

It is not just campaign groups like the Trade Justice Movement that back this. It is not just Scottish Land and Estates and the National Farmers Union that back measures like this one. The British Medical Association has weighed in, saying:

“The Bill presents an opportunity for the UK to present itself as a global leader on standards on food imports for the benefit of human, animal and plant health, and the environment. To fulfil this opportunity, it is vital that our current high standards are upheld and protected in any trade deals.”

It suggests that new clauses 7 and 11 should be backed in order to achieve that.

It is also necessary to have this on the face of the Bill because the Government’s approach to protecting food standards is slightly confused. In Committee, the Minister said:

“This Bill is about…continuity… Imports under continuity agreements must continue to comply with our existing import standards.”

I welcomed that. However, he added:

“Decisions on those standards are a matter for the UK and will be made separately from any trade agreements.”––[Official Report, Trade Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2020; c. 305-6.]

There is the point of concern, right there. The UK could, if it wished, lower standards, opening the door to all sorts of imports. Let us make sure that that is not possible, at least in the roll-over arrangements, by including the UK’s obligations under the WTO phytosanitary agreement in the Bill. That is important because although the purported objectives of the Bill are about roll-overs, the definition of “trade agreement” is very wide and the long title does not restrict its use only to roll-overs.

New clause 8 would ensure that the UK Government have a duty to restrict market access to healthcare services, including medicines and medical devices. We tabled the new clause precisely because trade deals potentially have a negative impact on health services. While the UK Government have repeatedly pledged that the NHS is not on the table in trade negotiations, leaked documents detail conversations between UK and US negotiators and reveal that health services have been discussed, including the US probing the UK’s “health insurance system”, and the US has made clear its desire for the UK to change its drug pricing mechanism. The new clauses therefore include specific carve-outs for the NHS, all relevant services and regulation, meaning that it would be illegal for the Government to conclude a trade agreement that altered the way that NHS services are provided, or liberalised further, or opened up to particular sorts of foreign investment.

There could be no use of negative listing because such clauses require that all industries are liberalised in trade agreements unless there are specific carve-outs, and it is not always easy to define what services count as health services. For example, digital services may seem irrelevant to health, but NHS data management and GP appointment systems are increasingly digitised. There could be no standstill or ratchet clauses, because these provisions mean that after the trade deal has been signed, parties are not allowed to reduce the level of liberalisation beyond what it was at the point of signature.

There are many examples of real-world potential impacts; I will give just one. The Scottish Government had private cleaners in the NHS and quite a high degree of hospital acquired infection. The private cleaners were replaced by NHS cleaners, and the level of hospital acquired infection fell dramatically. Had a ratchet been in effect, let alone ISDS, it might not have been possible to do that, with detrimental mortality and morbidity consequences for real patients. The clause also states that there should be investor-state dispute settlement clauses in trade agreements. They only allow private investors to challenge Government policy when it affects their profits. The BMA piled in to this debate, as well, saying:

“The Bill must rule out Investor Protection and Dispute Resolution mechanisms which undermine the supremacy of UK courts and risk deterring, delaying or blocking public health improvement measures.”

We have seen examples around the world of where that has happened. It is fundamentally quite wrong for large corporations to be able to use ISDS-type arrangements to sue Governments simply for taking steps to protect the wellbeing of their citizens, or for enacting public health measures that they believe to be right and for which they may well have an electoral mandate.

[Barry Gardiner]

The hon. Gentleman is making a fine speech. Does he agree that it seems a considerable irony that those Government Members who were so determined that this country should not be subject to any supranational court system should hereby, in an ISDS clause, enable our Government to be sued by foreign companies in specialist supranational courts in a way that is not even accessible to our own domestic companies?

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[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

It is a great honour to speak in this debate, having spoken briefly on Second Reading and sat on the Bill Committee and being a member of the International Trade Committee. We had a wide-ranging, well-informed and constructive debate in Committee, and it is good to see so many of its members speaking in the debate.

I would like to address a number of points, including the clauses relating to the NHS and to scrutiny, but because of the time limit, I will confine myself to just one, which is standards, and in particular new clause 11. Simply put, new clause 11 would allow the import of agricultural goods into the UK

“only if the standards to which those goods were produced were as high as”

the standards that apply under UK law. On the face of it, that sounds reasonable because it just seeks to ensure what we already have. Nobody has any difficulty with that—everybody here wants to maintain the high production standards, animal welfare standards and environmental standards that we have. That is why the Government have been absolutely clear that they will do precisely that. That is why the Minister stood on a manifesto commitment to do exactly that. That is why I stood on a manifesto commitment to do exactly that, as did all my hon. Friends.

There are a number of misunderstandings, which I will briefly address. We have already heard a number of times from Opposition Members about chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-treated beef, and I am sure we will hear about it again before the end of the debate. Those are already illegal in UK law. They are illegal because they are in European Union law, and European Union law is put into UK law by the terms of the withdrawal agreement. When Opposition Members plaintively say, “Why won’t the Government just put this in primary legislation?” the answer is because it is already there. If it were to be removed, the Government would have to bring something to the House and get us to vote on it—they would have to change the law, and we have all expressed our view about that. That prohibition is already there, so new clause 11 is simply unnecessary.

New clause 11 seeks to go further than maintaining our high import standards. It is crucial that we distinguish between import standards, which is the safety of food brought into this country, and safety standards, which is the way that they are produced domestically. The new clause seeks to have us say to all our trade partners, “We want to go further than ensuring that we import safe food. We want to reach into your domestic legislation and tell you exactly how you produce that food.” No self-respecting independent country will want to do that.

[Barry Gardiner]

That is patently false. All the new clause does is to say, “If you want to produce food to export into our market, it must be produced to these standards.” It does not in any way seek to impose legislation in the United States or anywhere else that would govern the way in which they can produce food.

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[Catherine West]

I rise to speak to new clauses 17 and 11, and on the principles of workers’ rights, national health service protection, and environmental and human rights. First, in relation to workers’ rights, we could not imagine a trade deal with such a country as Colombia when we know that the International Trade Union Confederation rates it as the most dangerous place to be a trade unionist. That means that the lives of many Members in the Chamber, who may be members of a trade union, could be at risk. To begin a trade deal with such a country without even mentioning workers’ rights seems to me to be absolutely ridiculous.

The problem with the Bill is how silent it is. It is silent on workers’ rights, as I have said. It is silent on the real protection of the NHS. We have had some reassurance on the NHS, but in particular I am worried about medicines and the cost of medicines, and about our data. We know that the national health service, unified as it is, provides the most fantastic data for research and for pharmaceutical companies. My fear is that, if we do not have more protection in the Bill, it will be open to those companies, through whichever country they are based in, to have a kind of values-free trade negotiation, which we as MPs will not be able to scrutinise effectively, and they could end up using our data, which, given the extent, longevity and detail of that data, is probably the best health data in the world. I therefore seek reassurances from the Minister on that specific point.

On environmental concerns, in leaving the European Union, we are leaving the gold standard of environmental protections, but it would be easy to write that protection in and lead on that in this Bill. Instead, the Bill is almost values free in terms of the importance of the environment. After covid, climate change and dealing with the climate emergency are probably the biggest concerns of our generation.

Many Members have mentioned the gold standard of food. I would also say that not everybody can afford to shop at Waitrose, which is the supermarket that has said that it will not buy low-quality goods. Many people will not be able to afford not to buy the cheapest food, particularly following the economic crash we are entering, the worst recession for 200 years, so we have to see the Bill in that context.

[Barry Gardiner]

Does my hon. Friend agree that many people who go to restaurants or to fast-food outlets will have no way of knowing the provenance of the food that they are consuming? It is not simply a matter of labelling in the supermarkets.

[Catherine West]

My hon. Friend makes such an important point. It is one that I will not repeat.

On the question of our role in this place, surely the past four years have taught us that people want us to be here to make these decisions. Tucking away a bit of legislation in the Library for 21 days is not what we are here for, and nor is running upstairs to an SI when we are in the middle of all-party group and all the rest. We need to have proper scrutiny in this place and the Select Committee needs to have an enhanced role. Having enjoyed my time on the International Trade Committee, I feel very strongly that it should have a key role in ratifying the role of the Trade Remedies Authority Commissioner. If that six-month commission continues, the Committee should also have a role in appointing its head. I will be lobbying very hard with colleagues who represent very rural seats—unlike Hornsey and Wood Green, which is one of the most urban seats—to have a proper commissioner continue in that role. Why have it for six months; let us have it forever. Let us have the International Trade Committee ratifying those two appointments. Let us also have a trade union voice and an industry voice on the TRA. If there is one thing that we have learned from covid, it is how well the TUC has worked and how well the CBI has worked together. They have led our Government and told them what to do on covid. Why cannot they do that with the Trade Bill?

We can get on. We can move forward together, but we must try to militate against this strong executive model that we have been saddled with by having these other checks and balances in place. We can do that through this Bill tonight and by supporting the sensible cross-party clauses, which share a lot of support. Let us try to enjoy that consensus building because we are in a new chapter. Let us not spoil it by having an inferior Trade Bill that is silent on the key issues of the day that concern us, be they human rights in China, environmental standards, which we have had a legacy of from our 40 years in the European Union, or the important question of what we are doing here as MPs.

Trade Bill

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Trade Bill is a bad Bill. It is bad because it fails to establish a proper framework whereby Parliament can scrutinise, ratify and implement all future international trade treaties; because it creates one of the weakest trade remedy authorities in the world, and because it pretends that it is necessary to roll over our existing agreements with third countries through the EU. So necessary is the measure that the Minister will have great difficulty when summing up in explaining how the Government have managed to roll over the majority of them before the Bill has passed into law. This is legislative prestidigitation of the highest order. The Government say that they need the Bill to do what they proudly boast they have already succeeded in doing without it. The truth is that the Bill is about the Government’s abrogating to themselves all future power in relation to trade agreements, freed from the inconvenient scrutiny of Parliament.

The procedure for ratifying international agreements is set out in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010—CRAGA. It stipulates that any treaty need only be laid before Parliament for 21 sitting days. If there is no vote against it during that period, it passes into law. But the Government decide Parliament’s business and can simply arrange that no vote takes place. When CRAGA was introduced, a huge number of democratic scrutiny processes were in place through the European Union. There was the European Council’s negotiation mandate and formal consultation procedures. The Committee on International Trade—the INTA Committee —scrutinised treaties before passing them to the European Parliament to vote on. Treaties then came to the European Scrutiny Committee in the Commons for further examination before the CRAGA process ratified them. Under the Bill, all that is left is the rubber stamp of CRAGA. All other layers are gone. The Bill should try to replace those layers. It cannot be right that there is no democratic oversight whatsoever of trade agreements.

Members of Parliament may disagree about whether an agreement will benefit jobs or adequately protect standards, but they should have at least the right to debate those matters and hold the Government to account. The Bill denies us that right. This is not Parliament taking back control, but Government snatching it from Parliament. That is why I believe the Bill is dangerous.

Let me remind Conservative Members of what they claimed to be fighting for at the last general election. They said that sovereignty meant not accepting the rulings of supranational courts such as the European Court of Justice. Do they therefore agree with us that the use of investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms in future trade agreements should be ruled out in any form? They give higher rights to foreign investors than to our own domestic companies, allowing them to sue our Government in private courts for policy decisions that have an impact on their potential profits. So much for gaining freedom from a supranational court.

Conservative Members said that Britain had to be free to chart its own future in the world. Do they therefore agree that negative lists of services should be banned? It is impossible to specify in a list a service that has not yet been invented. The negative list process would stop the UK Government making a decision about how such services should be provided in future. So much for making our own way in the world.

Conservative Members said that they would safeguard our domestic environmental protections, food safety regulations and animal welfare laws, but simply keeping our regulations for our farmers here does not protect them in a free trade agreement. Allowing the importation of goods produced elsewhere to lower standards will undermine our producers and lead to a race to the bottom—so much for safeguarding our food and welfare standards.

The Government said they would not sell off the NHS, and of course they cannot. The NHS is not an entity that can be sold, but free trade agreements can contain an innocuous-sounding provision about the restructuring of pharmaceutical pricing models. That is the way to undermine the health service—by downgrading our bulk purchasing power against big pharma companies. So much for the NHS being “safe” in their hands.

Finally, does it follow that if this Bill is enacted, by necessity we will end up with all these measures? No, it does not. It does mean, however, that if they exist in any proposed FDA, Parliament will have no means of stopping that. This debate is about more than trade; it is about the balance of power between Parliament and the Executive. It is about the sovereignty of Parliament—something that every Tory who will vote for this obnoxious Bill swore in their manifesto to defend.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am afraid we cannot hear Richard Graham at the moment, so I will now call Robert Courts.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Conor Burns]

We already have a deal with the EU that the Prime Minister secured last year. The question now is whether we can secure a free trade agreement with the EU. We seek a Canada-style deal, but Australia trades perfectly effectively through a number of side deals with the EU. Whatever happens, we are going to deliver on the referendum result, fully leave the European Union and provide British business and the British people with the opportunities of global free trade.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Can the Minister confirm that, under what the Government euphemistically call this Australia-style trade agreement, all the bilateral investment agreements we have with EU states, which were suspended while we were a member of the EU, will come back into force? What assessment has he made of the likely dispute proceedings that investors from those countries could launch and of the impact that would have on UK trade?

[Conor Burns]

The shadow Secretary of State may be moderately confused about our purpose here today, as this is questions to the Department for International Trade. As he is well aware, the European Union negotiations are handled by the Cabinet Office, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and David Frost, reporting to the Prime Minister.

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[Mr Speaker]

You’ve cracked that one before!

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will be familiar with the Brexit voucher scheme that has been launched by the Irish Government to support small and medium-sized enterprises trading across borders and affected by Brexit. The Dutch have introduced a similar scheme paying grants of over €2,000 and loans of up to €1.5 million. What assessment has she made of those measures and whether they are compliant with state aid rules, and if they are, why has she not introduced any similar measures to support our own SMEs, which face unknown tariffs, increased checks and inspections, and substantial delays to their trade?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are working very closely with the Cabinet Office to make sure that businesses have all the information they need to prepare for transition at the end of this year. This is also an opportunity, of course, to get more businesses trading with the rest of the world, and we will be saying more about this soon in our new export strategy.

Global Britain

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

The system of rules that has been at the core of world trade for the past 70 years is at breaking point. Corporations such as Google, Amazon and Huawei have arrogated to themselves enormous power. They are able to stand up to sovereign Governments, if not always their own, and to undermine fiscal and public policy. Countries such as China are emerging from non-market economy status with labour and utility costs that enable them to dump subsidised products on to western markets that undercut our domestic producers. The response from the USA has been increased protectionism, imposing arbitrary tariffs on aircraft, steel, aluminium and—my personal non-favourite—Scotch whisky, the impacts of which colleagues will be debating later today in Westminster Hall. At the end of last year, the American President made good on his promise to undermine the WTO by refusing to ratify the appointments to the appellate court. These actions go to the heart of the multilateral rules-based order.

None of this is meant as a criticism of Government. It is merely to set out the context against which the prudence of Government action must be assessed, because it is against this background that our country is tomorrow pulling out of the largest and most powerful free trade grouping in the world and, paradoxically, doing so in the name of free trade itself. It has therefore never been more important for this Parliament to articulate its support for an open and fair rules-based global trading system that creates wealth and jobs in a way that protects workplace rights and environmental standards and ensures that vital sectors of our national economy are protected from unfair external competition.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I share his distaste for monolithic multinational companies that do not play by the rules, but the EU has been singularly ineffective at dealing with them, as he illustrated in his opening remarks. Why, then, does he think our departure will not give us a better opportunity to deal with exactly the problems he outlines?

[Barry Gardiner]

The right hon. Gentleman mistakes me. I am not seeking to reopen the debate about the EU. We are leaving the EU tomorrow, and we must forge a positive and constructive future.

Madam Deputy Speaker, if you feel any sense of déjà vu in what I believe is the fifth debate entitled “Global Britain” in the past two years, then for my part it will only be in asking the Government to set out a coherent strategy as to what that phrase is going to mean in practice. In previous debates, I heard calls from Government Members to bring back the royal yacht and talk of something called empire 2.0, but that does not constitute a strategy. To ask the Government for their strategy is not to talk Britain down or to act against the national interest; it is simply to ask that we work together as grown-ups to devise a new relationship with our closest trading partners and to agree a set of priorities for our country’s future relations with others in an increasingly fraught geopolitical context.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I represent a city that still has a big steel industry, and 75% of our steel exports go to the EU. Does my hon. Friend agree that securing a good trading partnership with the EU is imperative if we are to protect the UK steel industry at an extremely challenging time?

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. She will know about America’s imposition of section 232 to impose tariffs, with the excuse being that its steel industry was necessary for national security. However, I accept that the Government say they want to negotiate a zero-tariff, zero-quota free trade agreement with the EU. We need to do that, and we certainly need to do it for the steel industry, which my hon. Friend represents.

Perhaps those who have the audacity to ask for a plan ought to be prepared to provide suggestions, so in that spirit, let me be clear that the Opposition will champion the United Kingdom as a leader on the world stage that uses its position to tackle injustice and the imminent climate catastrophe. That means that we want to invest in future technologies and next generation industries, foster innovation and grow jobs in the economy, and to do so in a way that helps our trade partners to do the same. We do not see trade as a zero-sum game of winners and losers. We see open and fair trade as a way of increasing global wealth, along with global justice and equality.

At a time of global turmoil and escalating trade wars, it is imperative to have a strategy that ensures that the UK is not helpless against a triple assault: the dumping of subsidised products into our markets, which undercuts our producers; punitive protectionist tariffs imposed upon our exports by our would-be partners; and potential disruption to our trade with the EU, which is still by far our largest trading partner. To that end, our relationship with the European Union must be the priority. We need a free trade agreement that not only protects our existing trade with zero tariffs and zero quotas, but ensures minimum future disruption in both goods and services. We cannot and must not allow a situation to arise whereby our businesses face tariffs on their goods to the EU, alongside onerous and complex administrative burdens, border inspections or delays to the supply chain.

Will the Minister address whether the Government intend to remain part of the pan-Euro-Mediterranean cumulation regime? If not, what is their assessment of the impact that that might have on UK industries and of how it might affect third countries with which we have concluded roll-over agreements and that have already included cumulation regimes in their own subsequent treaties? Producers must not be doubly impacted by a surge of cheaper imports from overseas, particularly where they are manufactured to standards lower than our own or in markets that are distorted by unfair or illegal practices.

The Secretary of State knows that she is introducing what has been called the

“weakest trade remedies regime in the world”,

and industry confidence was knocked still further by interim most favoured nation tariff measures that propose to abolish tariffs on up to 87% of imports. The EU and US are introducing safeguard measures that could see tariffs on our exports and increased diversion of dumped goods on to our market, wiping out foundation industries and the thousands of jobs that they account for in steel, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) said, in ceramics, which the Secretary of State talked about, and in major producers such as the automotive sector. I ask the Minister of State, Department for International Trade, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), to set out in his reply to the debate out how the Government will protect our manufacturers, producers and farmers from a flurry of such imports under future trade agreements.

[Bob Seely]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about dumping. Where does he believe that the high-tech sector and Huawei fit into that, given the soft subsidies provided by China to help the company muscle into 5G communications?

[Barry Gardiner]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me, and I have a great deal of sympathy with his position. I believe that the decision that the Government have reached on Huawei is already a risk too far, so I share that view with him. Of course, he is right to point out that the Chinese Government’s subsidy to Huawei is just as damaging in that sector as subsidies for steel or aluminium.

Future trade agreements could undermine rights and standards, could change the nature of work and the protections offered to workers, such as leave arrangements and parental leave, could reverse environmental protections, and could compromise data privacy and our capacity to regulate in the public interest. Trade agreements could also see our public services being locked into greater privatisation and different pricing models. I say “could” because I am trying to be generous, since Government Members have sought to assure us that no such thing will happen on their watch, but that takes us to the heart of things: if that is so, why are they refusing to allow any degree of scrutiny or engagement in the process?

The trade Bill was supposed to be one of the flagship Bills underpinning global Britain. The Government boasted that it would set out the framework under which future trade agreements would be concluded, but it has been delayed. It has been kicked into the long grass. In fact, it actually came out of its eighth and supposedly final Committee debate two years ago tomorrow. In Committee, we made every effort to legislate for proper democratic oversight of trade agreements. How unreasonable we were! We asked for consultation with industry, a published mandate agreed by Parliament, transparency of agreed texts, scrutiny, debate and positive ratification, but we were blocked.

In the other place, their lordships valiantly reinstated the democratic safeguards and, despite all the Government’s attempts at obfuscation and frustration, their lordships actually managed to introduce significant amendments to the Bill. No wonder it has now languished down the other end of the building for almost a year. In the meantime, the Government have signed a raft of trade agreements—not the 40 originally promised for a minute after midnight on 29 March last year—many of which try to mirror the existing terms of the third-party agreements with the EU. Those trade agreements have been subject to little public scrutiny, with the Government taking advantage of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 process to ratify treaties without giving Parliament the opportunity to debate them.

New Members may be unaware of the vagaries of CRAGA, under which an international treaty is automatically ratified after it has been published and laid before Parliament for 21 sitting days, so long as neither House has resolved against it. How do we resolve against it? The Government have to make time or provide an Opposition day for such a vote, but they have no compulsion to do either. That means Parliament can be presented with a fait accompli—so much for the return of sovereignty. International treaties are possibly the most binding law we pass in this place. They commit our successors in international law and cannot simply be repealed by a future Parliament in the way primary legislation normally can.

Let us examine what is happening under CRAGA. One such agreement currently pending ratification, having been laid before Parliament on 20 December 2019, is the UK-Morocco association agreement, which purports to cover Western Sahara. Western Sahara is categorised as a non self-governing territory under chapter 11 of the UN charter, and it has been under military occupation by Morocco since 1975 after Spain surrendered the colony. The Sahrawi people have been denied the referendum that would allow them to exercise their right to self-determination.

The European Court of Justice has twice ruled, in 2016 and 2018, that Western Sahara is a “separate and distinct” territory from Morocco under international law, and that no agreement with Morocco can be applied to the territory of Western Sahara without the consent of the Sahrawi people. The group internationally recognised as the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people has rejected every proposal that the EU’s trade agreement with Morocco should apply to them. In fact, a coalition of 93 Sahrawi civil society groups has confirmed that the people of Western Sahara reject the inclusion of their territory in any agreement concluded by Morocco.

Our own High Court ruled just last year that the territory of Western Sahara is separate from Morocco under international law and that the UK Government are acting unlawfully by failing to distinguish between the territory of Morocco and the occupied territory of Western Sahara.

The proposed UK-Morocco association agreement is thus contrary to international law and our own law, and it should not be ratified by Parliament until all references to Western Sahara are removed. This is what happens when there is no process of prior consultation, mandate-setting, scrutiny, transparency or debate as part of the ratification process.

Other recent treaties that replicate economic partnership agreements concluded between the EU and countries in central and southern Africa, for example, force market liberalisation measures without allowing for any modernisation or incubation capacity for industry in those partner nations. That effectively locks in economic dependency and prevents the broadening of their economic and industrial base, which is essential to achieving their development goals.

The impact on chicken farming in Ghana, Cameroon and Senegal has been well documented. Dumped chicken products from the EU, farmed with subsidy support under the common agricultural policy, have decimated local chicken production, raising genuine food security questions for these least developed countries.

Is this the global Britain that Conservative Members aspire to be: compounding economic hardship, legitimising oppression and actively supporting regimes that flagrantly abuse human rights and international humanitarian law? I do not think so, but it is what will happen unless the Government openly and frankly outline a detailed strategy for global Britain, and unless Parliament is allowed to fulfil its constitutional role of holding the Government to account.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

What is the Opposition’s policy? The hon. Gentleman is outlining a policy of the European Union. The Labour party wanted to join the customs union, which would have implemented exactly that policy. Is that protectionist and slightly weird policy towards the rest of the world still the Labour party’s policy?

[Barry Gardiner]

I will try to take the hon. Gentleman’s question seriously, because it has a serious core. We have moved on from the debate about the European Union, and we must move on, so it is now about setting the right course for global Britain. That is what this debate is about, and we should not simply roll over the bad things in the EU’s trade agreements and economic partnership agreements. We should set out a new way to engage with such countries that is not exploitative in the same way as the previous treaties. I hope that answers his question.

[Mr Bone]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[Barry Gardiner]

No, because I have just answered that very point.

[Mr Bone]

You can’t answer it, can you?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order.

[Barry Gardiner]

We cannot forget that this Government have continued to support the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with arms sales, despite the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and despite the Court of Appeal ruling that such exports must cease. The Secretary of State had to come before this House to apologise for breaching the Government’s undertakings to the Court of Appeal and to the House of Commons. Perhaps she might be able to tell us the outcome of the Department’s inquiry into how many breaches of those undertakings there were and how they came about. I will happily give way to her if she can. If she cannot, can the Minister of State, Department for International Trade, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), when he sums up, at least inform the House of when we might expect the outcome of that report?

I am reminded that we are also waiting for further information on the Department’s investigation into bribery and corrupt practices involving British companies overseas, especially those supported by taxpayers’ funds through UK Export Finance. Can we have an update on that investigation, too?

Earlier this week, it was revealed that Airbus has entered a deferred prosecution agreement in relation to allegations of corrupt practices overseas. This is not the global Britain that we should be projecting: a nation willing to sell arms and equipment to countries with a track record of violating international humanitarian law, where they may be used against innocent civilians, deployed in efforts to oppress citizens or exported through corrupt practices.

It is not just in the arena of international trade that the global order is under threat. NATO, too, is coming under increased strain. There are wrangles on costs and burden sharing, and member states are purchasing weapons systems outside the alliance.

Later this year, the UK will host the crucial United Nations framework convention on climate change—COP26—in Glasgow. This is a truly global responsibility but, sadly, it will also be the moment when America finally pulls out of the Paris agreement, in accordance with the notification it gave two years ago. It will also coincide with the result of the US presidential election. Many countries that have been earnestly engaging in the Paris process, seeking to reduce their own emissions, may come to question their engagement if America continues to be absent from the process.

The pattern of global power is shifting dramatically and swiftly. It is turbocharged by big data, the fourth industrial revolution, artificial intelligence, robotics and the internet of things. Above all, geopolitics will be affected by the energy transformation as the world moves towards a net-zero carbon economy.

From coal and whale oil to crude and shale, the geopolitical map has been moulded by the need to control energy supplies. Distribution pinch points such as the Suez canal and the strait of Hormuz have been flash points for conflict, and the projection of global power has relied on the ability to maintain security of energy supply. The inevitability of this shift is not simply due to the rapidly declining cost of renewables, or even the health and climate problems associated with fossil fuels.

Renewables, in many forms, are widely dispersed in most countries, promoting domestic self-sufficiency. They are not stocks that are used and then depleted; they are flows that are constantly recharged and so require less transportation and have no choke points. They lend themselves to decentralisation of production and consumption, and they can more easily be deployed at a local community scale. They also have marginal costs that approach to zero. So just as the geographic concentration of coal, oil and gas moulded our political landscape since the industrial revolution, the dispersed nature of renewable energy will erode those traditional patterns in a new global world. It is not clear that the Government have thought through the geopolitical implications of this energy transformation: which countries are likely to forge ahead and leapfrog the old technology; and which will fail to transform their subsoil assets of oil and gas into surface assets of human social and political capital quickly enough. It is often said that the stone age did not end because of a lack of stone, and nor will the fossil fuel age end because of a lack of oil, gas or coal. It will end with a lot of stranded assets that could pose severe financial risks that a global Britain must guard against.

The Government have sought to congratulate themselves repeatedly on our domestic progress towards net zero, but this has been achieved through the systematic exporting of our carbon emissions and an explicit policy of supporting activities overseas that we no longer support at home. I therefore welcome what the Prime Minister said:

“there’s no point in the UK reducing the amount of coal we burn if we then trundle over to Africa and line our pockets by encouraging African states to use more of it.”

He is right, and that is why we stopped UK Export Finance funding for coal back in 2002 and why we stopped official development assistance finance for coal back in 2012. What I want to hear from the Minister is an update, the logical corollary of what the Prime Minister said, which is that there is no point in the UK reducing the amount of fossil fuels we burn if we then trundle over to Brazil or Africa or India or anywhere and line our pockets by encouraging those countries to use more oil and gas.

UKEF has helped to finance oil and gas projects that, when complete, will emit 69 million tonnes of carbon a year. That is nearly a sixth of the total annual carbon emissions of the UK itself. Global Britain cannot be Janus-faced, with domestic virtue masking the international promotion of the very policies we say we want to prevent, freeing ourselves to embrace a net-zero future while locking other developing countries into fossil fuel dependency.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

In the past 25 minutes, we have heard a lot of virtuous noises about renewable energy which we can all agree with. We know that the hon. Gentleman is against defence and security exports, against the US and against Saudi Arabia. He is against a whole number of things, and global Britain in terms of trade seems to mean for the Labour party “lining our pockets”. What is the Labour party’s vision of the role of the UK in the world? Does he not see enormous opportunities for us in working with continents such as Africa and Asia?

[Barry Gardiner]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has sought to intervene in that way, because that quote about lining pockets is from his own Prime Minister, so I not think he does himself any credit. The fact that he has not listened to the positive things that I have been saying is his problem, not mine.

UK Export Finance plays a significant role in enabling fossil fuel projects by removing risk and sending safe signals to investors—these are the wrong signals. The Government’s dangerous approach risks leaving the UK taxpayer on the hook, financing stranded assets as the world rapidly moves away from fossil fuels. That is the point: this is a problem for us and for our economic security in the future. That is precisely what Mark Carney, Bloomberg and many others in the financial taskforce have tried to point out.

Two years ago, I called for the UK to end all fossil fuel projects supported by UKEF and to focus on our renewable technologies instead. Will the Government recognise that that is what a confident, outward-facing, global Britain needs to do? The UK has not yet depleted entirely its stock of fossil fuels, but its future does not lie so much in their further exploitation as in our capacity to use digital technology, smart grids and big data to place ourselves at the vanguard of this energy transition.

Global Britain cannot be backward looking. We must look forward to new opportunities and the repositioning of global powers. We must harness our unique skills and capabilities, and leverage them to take advantage of emerging economies and emergent technological solutions. We need a coherent industrial strategy that ensures a diverse economic base and a skilled workforce capable of meeting the emergent opportunities of a very different but precarious world. We need a proper, robust, independent, trade defence measure, and we need a Government that defend British interests and stand up against unfair practices overseas, including tariffs imposed on the likes of ceramics, which the Secretary of State has talked about. We need a democratic approach to trade agreements that have the early buy-in of affected stakeholders, businesses, trade unions, civil society, devolved Administrations and the elected representatives of the British people.

We cannot seek to make progress on the new issues affecting trade, digital economies and cross-border data flows, the treatment of bundled goods and services, the enforcement of intellectual property rights and so forth until we move forward. We must demonstrate the effectiveness of the rules-based system, work to progress and re-establish the appellate body of the World Trade Organisation, but we must also reform its structures to deliver the global order that is more just and more equitable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Conor Burns]

My hon. Friend is right to see the enormous opportunities. It was my pleasure to lead the trade discussions in the UK-Tunisia bilateral forum last September, and I would be absolutely delighted to meet the ambassadors with my hon. Friends to see what more trade we can do between our two countries.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

In its decision issued in March 2019, the High Court of England and Wales confirmed that the territory of Western Sahara is separate from Morocco under international law. It ruled that the UK Government were acting unlawfully by failing to distinguish between the territory of Morocco and the occupied territory of Western Sahara. Yet the trade agreement between the UK and the Kingdom of Morocco purports to apply to the territory of Western Sahara, despite the total lack of consent from the Sahrawi people. Will the Secretary of State explain why that is the case? Given that the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 process to ratify the agreement is now under way, is it her intention to hold a debate to discuss why the Government are proceeding to ratify a treaty that the High Court has ruled illegal?

[Conor Burns]

We had discussions about this subject with representatives of the Moroccan Government, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, when I visited Morocco two weeks ago, and indeed it was raised by my hon. Friend the Minister for Africa when he was with me there last October. The United Kingdom has taken the consistent position that the matter needs to be resolved diplomatically and sensitively with ongoing discussions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

I congratulate Croft Architectural Hardware on its brilliant work. I understand that we have helped it to attend two trade fairs in the US through our trade show access programme. I also note that there is currently a 4% tariff on door knockers; I hope that in future trade agreements we shall be able to get that removed.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

Can the Secretary of State point to any examples of intersecting customs unions anywhere else in the world? Will she confirm that under the EU customs code to be implemented in Northern Ireland, goods will have to be declared and products of animal origin will have to pass through a border inspection involving both documentary and physical checks, and does she accept that those will subsist completely irrespective of the tariff regime in any future free trade agreement with the EU?

[Elizabeth Truss]

As we have made very clear, we want to ensure that there is no hard border in Northern Ireland. That is a priority for the Government, and we have reached a new agreement with the EU that delivers on it. Of course, we need to work through the details of precisely how that arrangement will work.

The hon. Gentleman needs to recognise that the world is moving on: we are moving into an area in which trade is being digitised, and we are finding new ways of facilitating customs. Rather than being negative and a naysayer, why does he not contribute to the solution?