Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (Accession)

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We want to pursue a trade policy that is economically beneficial to the UK and levels up our country, but helps achieve more resilience for our country, protects us against protectionist urges that we are seeing around the world and diversifies our trade away from dependence on single nations or regions that we might come to regret.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

It is a bit difficult not to come to the conclusion that, basically, the Government want to form new trade deals with countries that are less financially significant to us in terms of trade but speak English. If we add up all the trade that the UK does with the countries in the Commonwealth, it does not add up to the trade that we presently do with France and Germany, does it?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I could read to the hon. Gentleman the list of 11 countries—I assure him that many of them do not speak English as their main language, but that is not really the point. The point is that we want to be the centre of a global trading network. That network, of course, includes our friends and partners in the European Union. It includes the United States and the Americas. It includes the Asia-Pacific region as well. We can have all those things by creating this network of free trade agreements, and we are making rapid progress on that.