Oral Answers to Questions

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for International Trade (Elizabeth Truss) [V]]

The United States is our largest single country trading partner and an important ally. We have already made progress in the Airbus-Boeing dispute, getting tariffs removed on great British products such as machinery and whisky. I am now working closely with my US counterparts to tackle global issues on steel, aerospace and technology to make sure that trade is fair as well as free.

[Brendan O'Hara]

We are six months into Brexit and the sea of opportunity that the seafood producers of my Argyll and Bute constituency were promised has turned out to be swamp of bureaucracy. Alongside a mountain of paperwork and red tape, they all report falling prices, loss of markets, labour shortages and major transport and logistical problems. Six months into Brexit, they are facing an existential crisis. How has the Secretary of State’s Department allowed that to happen?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We have seen trade with the EU bounce back after some initial issues. In particular, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has offered support to seafood producers to ensure that they have what they need to be able to deal with those issues.

Free Trade Agreement Negotiations: Australia

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I fear we already know the answer to whether they believe in Britain or not. This deal will go through the proper parliamentary scrutiny process, through the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 process, as all international treaties do. I concur with my hon. Friend that the idea that Britain’s future should be in closing ourselves off to the rest of the world—in putting up high-tariff barriers, not innovating, not learning and not sharing ideas—is the recipe for penury, not the recipe for success.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

My constituency overwhelmingly rejected Brexit, because we knew what it would do to our farming and fishing industry. Is the Secretary of State concerned that the Australian farmers are hailing this as a huge victory, while Scottish farmers see it as a complete betrayal? Will she therefore explain to the hill farming communities in my constituency how flooding the UK market with cheap, factory-farmed, inferior produced meat is the golden opportunity that the Prime Minister promised that this deal would be?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I think the hon. Gentleman’s farmers deserve better than the ludicrous scaremongering that he has been putting forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

What discussions she has had with her US counterpart on that country’s imposition of a 25% tariff on single malt Scotch whisky.

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

The Government take very seriously the punitive US tariffs on UK goods, including on single malt Scotch whisky. We are fighting for the removal of all such tariffs and are pushing for a negotiated settlement to the underlying World Trade Organisation civil aviation cases. The Secretary of State raised these issues most recently with US trade representative Ambassador Lighthizer in September.

[Brendan O'Hara [V]]

Exactly a year ago, the United States imposed 25% tariffs on Scotch malt whisky, devastating exports and threatening thousands of Scottish jobs. Despite the Minister’s Department making the removal of those damaging tariffs a priority, his Government have failed to move their special friend in the White House an inch on these issues. Could he explain exactly why the Scotch whisky industry, apart from being £360 million poorer, is in exactly the same place today as it was a year ago?

[Greg Hands]

I thank the hon. Member for that question. We oppose these tariffs vigorously. We are stepping up talks with the US and we were pleased that in August the US did not extend the tariffs to blended whisky, and actually removed them from shortbread. The irony is that the Scottish National party are urging us to enter into direct trade talks with the US—something that we are already doing, but something that we would not be able to do if we followed its policy of rejoining the European Union. I just remark on the SNP’s chutzpah in urging us to do something to which it is fundamentally opposed: engage directly with the United States on trade policy.

Sale of Arms: War in Yemen

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Last week, the Foreign Secretary revealed a new and seemingly ethical dimension to the UK’s foreign policy, yet within 48 hours we were back selling arms to Saudi Arabia and this Government were refusing to take action against their friends in Bahrain who are about to execute two more political prisoners. Is it not the truth that it is business as usual for any regime—however brutal, however undemocratic—as long as its pockets are deep enough and this Government think there is something to be gained? Is that not the squalid truth?

[Greg Hands]

No, it is not.

Oral Answers to Questions

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Conor Burns]

I understand that the hon. Lady attended a briefing yesterday on the negotiations, led by our brilliant chief negotiator. She asks whether we are pursuing concurrent trade negotiations with the EU and the United States. The answer is yes we are, in exactly the same way that the EU is currently negotiating with the United States.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Further to that question and to the question asked by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), I want to be absolutely clear about one thing: there is no such thing as an Australian free trade deal with the EU. An Australia-terms Brexit is actually a no-deal Brexit, and no amount of spin or repackaging can hide that fact. Does the Minister think that no deal is an acceptable outcome, given the near apocalyptic conclusions of his own Government’s Yellowhammer report, which talked about two and a half day waits at ports for lorries? Is that acceptable?

[Conor Burns]

A free trade agreement with the European Union is our ambition, and we hope that it shares that ambition. Our ambition is also to engage in free trade negotiations, which the Secretary of State is leading on, with the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Japan in the first instance. I can tell the hon. Gentleman and sceptics on the Opposition Benches that the interest in the opportunities for the United Kingdom to engage bilaterally around the world, now that we control our own independent trade policy for the first time in almost 50 years, is almost unquenchable—I think of the conversations we have had in the last six months with the Gulf Co-operation Council, Vietnam, Brazil, Chile, Morocco, Algeria and Commonwealth Trade Ministers. I just hope that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents will welcome the opportunities that we are giving them to trade with the world and enjoy ever increasing prosperity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Conor Burns]

As a distinguished parliamentarian, the hon. Lady knows how this House works. She will have ample opportunity to scrutinise the trade Bill during its passage through Parliament and, if she wishes, to make amendments to the Bill, which can then be considered by the House. I wish that the Opposition would stop peddling this lie, which is worrying people, about the NHS and the United States. The Prime Minister has made it repeatedly clear that the NHS is not on the table in any trade agreement. She should stop scaremongering.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

3. What recent discussions she has had with her US and EU counterparts on the imposition of tariffs on Scotch whisky. [R]

[The Secretary of State for International Trade (Elizabeth Truss)]

We are extremely disappointed that the US has decided to levy tariffs, including on the Scotch whisky industry. I have urged my US counterpart to rethink this, and the Prime Minister has also raised the issue with President Trump.

[Brendan O'Hara]

In the days following this announcement, the Government were asleep at the wheel. We now have only 12 hours before this tariff is implemented. What action will the Secretary of State take in the next 12 hours to delay this? If she cannot delay it, what will she do to mitigate the impact, particularly on small and medium-sized distillers, which rely so heavily on the US market?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I have been raising this issue with my US counterpart since July, when I first met Bob Lighthizer. I have also raised it with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. I have made it clear to the Americans that it is not helpful in terms of our relationship with them to see these tariffs placed on such an iconic industry, among other industries in the UK.

US Tariffs: Scotch Whisky

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Conor Burns]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is a doughty champion for his constituents and the commercial interests in his constituency. I was aware of the presence of Walkers Shortbread in his constituency and the fact that it exports more than £29 million a year and is a significant local employer. Before coming to the House, I asked for a list of all Members who represent Scottish constituencies and how many distilleries they have in their constituency. I was more than surprised to find that my hon. Friend has a significant number—I think more than 40—in his constituency, which makes the following offer very easy to make: I would be delighted to visit him in his constituency and see some of those distilleries, and perhaps also Walkers Shortbread.

As for what we can do to get this message across, the United States ambassador to the UK, Ambassador Johnson, is known to many of us, and he is known to be very close to President Trump. I encourage all Members across the House to contact the American ambassador and make him aware of the strength of feeling on this subject in this House and across the country.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

As the Minister will find out, it is quality rather than quantity that counts when it comes to Scotch whisky. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Scotch whisky, I have no doubt that these tariffs will have a hugely negative impact on one of our most important, successful and growing industries. The Scotch whisky industry employs 11,000 people directly. I encourage UK Ministers to do everything they can to resolve this as quickly as possible, because it is in no one’s interests to have a trade war like this, where everybody will almost inevitably end up on the losing side and jobs, confidence and future investment will be affected. I fear that these tariffs will disproportionately impact on the small independent distilleries, of which there are many in my Argyll and Bute constituency and, indeed, across the economically fragile, rural parts of Scotland.

The Minister listed a number of conversations that have been had, but I would like him to clarify what conversations have taken place since Thursday with both the EU and the United States? Is it not the case that a post-Brexit, isolated UK would have much less negotiating power than it currently has as part of one of the world’s largest trade blocs when it comes to fending off someone like Donald Trump?

[Conor Burns]

I am going to resist the temptation to launch on the last point. Tempting as it is, I would rather try to keep a degree of consensus on the issue, but I would say this to the hon. Gentleman. He opened by saying that it is quality, not quantity, that counts. I think that has been the cry of many down the generations. A trade war would be in no one’s interests: there will be no winners in a trade war. The thing that I think agitates and upsets us most about this, as I said earlier, is that those who have done absolutely nothing in the Airbus-Boeing dispute, with the rights and wrongs on both sides, and people who have had absolutely nothing to do with that, going back so many years, will now be hurt and harmed if these tariffs come into play. We will continue to use every opportunity to convey to our friends in the United States that this is—

[Brendan O’Hara]

Since Thursday?

Arms Export Licences (Saudi Arabia)

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Thursday 26th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

The question refers specifically to the process of issuing export licences, and that is what I have been focusing on.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Is it not the case that this Government will always seek to break their own rules and turn a blind eye to breaches of humanitarian law when there is money to be made and deals to be had?

[Elizabeth Truss]

As soon as this issue was brought to my attention on 12 September, I took action to ensure that such things cannot happen.