Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I know that my hon. Friend is committed to Canada, having served as trade envoy and done a fantastic job. As part of our ambitious free trade agreement programme, we announced yesterday our intention to accede to the CPTPP, which is an advanced trade agreement covering chapters such as data and digital and goes far beyond what the EU has been willing to agree. Canada is one of the key players in the CPTPP, alongside countries such as Australia and New Zealand.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

What discussions she has had with UK trade partners on maintaining environmental protection standards in future free trade agreements.

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

What discussions she has had with UK trade partners on maintaining environmental protection standards in future free trade agreements.

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

The Government are committed to meeting their ambitious environmental objectives. We are exploring all options in the design of future trade and investment agreements, including environmental provisions within those, to ensure that we uphold the UK’s high environmental standards.

[Cat Smith]

Last year’s free trade agreement between Mexico, the US and Canada ran to 250 pages but failed to mention climate change or global emissions. What assurances can the Minister give the House that the free trade agreement being negotiated by his Government between the UK and the US will not make the same mistake and will put climate change at the heart of it?

[Greg Hands]

The hon. Lady raises a good question. The UK is absolutely committed to our international climate change agenda; that is one of our key objectives. We have not included that because the US is withdrawing from the Paris accord, which we regret. She mentioned the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. That agreement does include 30 pages of environmental commitments, including, for example, on sustainability, forestry, air quality, marine plastics, multilateral agreements and so on. There is plenty of potential for us to go further on the environment with our US trade agreement.