Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Philp Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

Actually, this Government have made enormous efforts to stop wildlife trafficking. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs made it a major part of his visit to south-east Asia last week, and he made particular reference to the pangolin, which at the moment is the world’s most trafficked animal. This Government are leading global efforts in combating this horrendous trade.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

T7. Does my right hon. Friend agree that free trade helps consumers by lowering prices and that free trade has been one of the biggest contributors to combating global poverty over the past 100 years? Will he embrace the opportunities created by Brexit to do free trade deals that will help consumers and British businesses?

[Dr Fox]

At the WTO this week, I again made the case for free trade, and the UK is a global champion of free trade. We tend to discuss our trade in terms of producers, but we must always remember that free trade is an enormous benefit to consumers in lowering prices, improving choice and increasing quality. Free trade has also been the route by which we have taken more than 1 billion people on this planet out of abject poverty in the past generation, which we should celebrate.