Continuity Trade Agreements: Parliamentary Scrutiny Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for International Trade
Clive Efford
Main Page: Clive Efford (Labour - Eltham and Chislehurst)Department Debates - View all Clive Efford's debates with the Department for International Trade
Continuity Trade Agreements: Parliamentary Scrutiny
Clive Efford Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Greg Hands
I thank my hon. Friend for all his interaction. As the former Chairman of the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, he has genuine expertise in this area and has continued his interest in it. He mentioned the EU-Japan trade agreement, but I think he is really asking about the UK-Japan trade agreement and the difference with the EU-Japan deal. If I commit to write to him in some detail on exactly where those differences are, he will be able to see them. I expect the report that is being submitted to Parliament will look at those differences in some detail.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Is it not true that the Government have just overstated the ease with which they would be able to do all this? We were going to have 40 trade deals on 29 March 2019, and we were going to have a trade area bigger than the EU, which was going to include China and the US. Prime Minister Trudeau said the talks hit the buffers because of the inability of the UK Government to negotiate trade deals—that is the truth of it. What are the Government going to do to ensure not only that we get these rollover trade deals dealt with, but that we have proper scrutiny of them?
Greg Hands
I am glad the hon. Gentleman made his question as long as he did, because it gave me the chance to check the voting record on the Canada deal he just mentioned. He actually voted against it when the vote came to the House of Commons, so it is a bit rich of him now to complain it is not being rolled over.