UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend. Our relationship with Japan is going from strength to strength. Japan and the United Kingdom are two great island nations, but we are not insular in our embrace of freedom, democracy, human rights and free trade, and we will be working together when the UK has the presidency of the G7 next year to advance on all these fronts and to champion much-needed reform of the global rules for services and digital trade.

Next year, Japan will chair the comprehensive and progressive trans-Pacific partnership, a high-standards agreement that promotes the values that we believe in for rules-based free trade. The CEPA secures Japan’s support for our joining that club and will provide further market access under that agreement. This agreement will turbocharge our trade with dynamic members from Canada and Australia to Chile and Peru. The CPTPP is more than the sum of its parts, because we gain access to a free trade area with common standards and rules of origin, which means flexibility and opportunities, but, unlike with the EU, we retain control of our borders, our laws and our money.

This huge gateway to the Pacific region will help us unleash our potential as a global hub for services and technology trade. On joining CPTPP, global Britain would have unprecedented and deep access to markets covering 13% of the world’s GDP, which equates to more than £11 trillion in some of the world’s fastest growing markets. If we add in the US, this would amount to over 40% of the world’s GDP, which equates to more than £27 trillion.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is very generous in giving way. As a member of the all-party group on Japan, I agree with some of the things that she is saying, but does she agree that, in principle, it would be much better if we had more scrutiny in advance of votes on trade deals, so that we can have this kind of debate rather than having it post facto?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I will come on to the issue of scrutiny later in my speech, but we committed in our Command Paper to produce a scoping assessment, which we did. We have produced our objectives and there are opportunities for them to be scrutinised through the International Trade Committee, and that has been happening during the process. There will be full opportunity for a debate afterwards. This puts us in a very strong position compared with comparative parliamentary democracies, and of course I welcome the opportunity to debate issues such as CPTPP during the accession process next year.

Today’s debate is truly historic, as trade policy is once again a matter for the United Kingdom and for this House. It is part of our new system of proper scrutiny, of which I am delighted to be a part. Parliament will rightly have the final say on the ratification of this deal. I am very grateful for this report from the International Trade Committee, which has made clear the desire for a debate. We will shortly be introducing an amendment to the Trade Bill, which will write the role of our vital Trade and Agriculture Commission into law, again giving independent advice to Parliament on trade and agriculture.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine West]

Will my right hon. Friend accept an intervention?

[Emily Thornberry]

I will rattle through a bit of my speech, because I have the beady eyes of Madam Deputy Speaker on me. Once I know I am definitely halfway, I will take interventions.

The same situation with Opposition day debates is set to be true of the continuity agreements recently reached with Ukraine, the Ivory Coast, Kenya, Canada and, of course, the 11 other continuity agreements that the Government still need to secure in the next five weeks—or 14, if we are still counting Algeria, Bosnia and Serbia.

In other words, the process for parliamentary scrutiny and approval that the Government are relying on for our future deals as an independent trading nation is failing repeatedly at the very first hurdle, through the denial of Opposition day debates. I therefore greatly welcome the Secretary of State’s decision to grant this debate and vote in Government time, and hope that she will amend the Trade Bill, because she will now have realised that this simply will not do; the right to debate and approve future trade agreements should be a matter of law, not just a matter of discretion. That brings me to the main theme of my remarks: the importance of the Japan agreement as a precedent for other trade deals to come, in terms of both substance and the way in which they are presented to the world.

Let me start with some of the positives. I welcome the Secretary of State’s dedicated chapter on the role of women in our economy. That is definitely an important precedent. I hope that her friend Tony Abbott will study it closely to appreciate that female empowerment means more than just plugging in the iron. I welcome the new ground broken in this agreement on trade in digital services and data—a vital area of future growth for exports and investment—and hope that the Government’s stated principles, particularly on net neutrality, will be precedents for our future trade deals with Australia and the United States. But I am afraid that there are many other areas in which I hope that the Japan deal does not set a precedent.

Beyond digital, there is a disappointing absence of any new measures to support the vital role of Japanese companies as investors in our economy and creators of British jobs—something that is especially important in the current climate, as we look to safeguard the jobs provided by companies such as Nissan. There is also a lack of any new, enforceable commitments on climate change and the environment. That is another wasted opportunity and one that does not bode well for the ongoing negotiations with Australia. There is the absence of any progress on workers’ rights, coupled with the failure to consult trade unions on the deal, as well as the rolling back of commitments on civil society dialogue. I am afraid that this is all consistent with a Secretary of State whose official trade union advisory group contains just four members, one of which is the British Medical Association.

When it comes to deeply unfortunate precedents, there is also the sheer extent to which the Secretary of State has exaggerated, oversold and misrepresented the benefits of a UK-Japan deal compared with the EU-Japan deal that it replaces. Let us take a single example: agriculture and food. She tells us that 70 new British products will be protected by GI status thanks to her deal, but that will only be true if they are approved by Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture—a process that takes at least five months and which resulted in the rejection of 85% of applications last year. She tells us that our farmers and food producers will benefit from lower Japanese tariffs, but that will only be true if they are exporting to Japan ostrich feathers, dried eggs or 180 proof alcohol, which none of them currently does.

The Secretary of State tells us that we will benefit from continued access to the EU tariff rate quotas for exports to Japan of products such as soft cheese and cake mix, but that will only be true if the EU does not use up those quotas itself. She tells us that British farmers will have access to Japan’s quota for imports of malt, which, I am delighted to tell colleagues, is true. It is true! But she did not mention that it is actually a global quota to which every farmer in the world has access—so I do not know why she is looking so pleased with herself—and which can be withdrawn by Japan at any time. Finally, her Department’s Twitter feed tells us—during an episode of “The Great British Bake Off”, no less—that imports of Japanese soy sauce will be cheaper, which, as thousands of people pointed out, is not true in the slightest.

In one area after another, the spin from the Secretary of State and her Department does not match the substance, and her concern for how the deal will be presented appears to be more of a priority than the deal that she will actually deliver. That is a hugely damaging precedent, and one that I hope will not be followed—for example, in the Canada deal signed last weekend—particularly when it comes to our cheese exporters. After all, if it is the case that, like the Japan deal, we will only get access to the EU’s quota on exports of cheese to Canada if the EU has not used up the quota itself, that is deeply worrying for our dairy industry.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

Given the time, I will with your leave, Madam Deputy Speaker, take some other interventions at this moment, as I am halfway through my speech.

[Catherine West]

My right hon. Friend mentioned workers’ rights; does she agree with the now sadly deceased Senator John Lewis that, had workers’ rights been more at the heart of a proper consultative process, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations may have ended better than they did?