Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Catherine West and Elizabeth Truss

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

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

Today, on International Women’s Day, we see all the women trying to escape with their families, their children and their mothers and fathers to reach places such as Poland, which has offered refuge to some 1 million refugees, and Ireland, which has taken several hundred thousand. Here in the UK, however, barely 100 have been able to find refuge. That is a shameful lack of humanity in the face of the greatest humanitarian catastrophe in Europe since world war two. Does the Secretary of State agree that this paltry effort to offer refuge is a stain on our otherwise commendable effort on the crisis in Ukraine? Will she urgently work with the Home Secretary, shake up the Home Office and get this sorted?

[Elizabeth Truss]

As I have said, the Home Office has opened new centres for people to be able to put in their applications. It is running a 24/7 helpline and has a surgery for MPs in Portcullis House. I also point the hon. Lady to the fact that we are the largest donor of humanitarian aid, with £220 million. We also want to help people to settle in the region; many people coming from Ukraine want to settle locally and we are helping in that effort by sending our humanitarian teams to the region.

UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement

Debate between Catherine West and Elizabeth Truss

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.