Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Jones Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

Yesterday, I asked the Prime Minister whether Parliament will get a final vote on any trade deal negotiated with the United States, and the Prime Minister stated that it would go through the known process. That process does not include a vote for MPs on the ratification of any trade deal. Will the Secretary of State therefore make it explicitly clear, with a yes or no, whether MPs will get a final vote on the deal with the United States? The PM’s answer yesterday implied that we would not.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

The answer, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is no; we are not, in this Government, seeking to change the ratification process for any treaty. He knows the process and how it works. The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 sets out that process. It allows MPs to scrutinise any treaty agreed with a country and presented to the House. The implementation of any aspect of any treaty still has to come to Parliament, of course; it is not the case that any agreement on any kind of international treaty can supersede what we agree in this place. In that process, all Members of Parliament get the same rights and privileges, quite rightly, but no—we are not proposing changes to the process by which we agree treaties with other countries.

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[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

The Government need to deliver measures that will cut red tape for businesses in Wokingham and across the country who want to sell their goods to our largest trading partner, the European Union. Since Brexit, over 2 billion pieces of paperwork have been added to UK exporters—enough paper to wrap around the world nearly 15 times. Does the Minister recognise the scale of that figure? How will he ensure that Conservative-imposed red tape for business with Europe is cut down?

[Mr Alexander]

We are consciously pursuing a trade agenda based on data, not on post-imperial delusion. Regrettably, the data is pretty devastating on the damage done by how Brexit was implemented by our predecessors. If one wants to look at academic research, the latest publications from Aston University indicate that a number of small and medium-sized businesses, about which we have heard a lot today from Opposition Members, were buried under red tape. It is not only those businesses that have been buried under red tape; we have seen an increase in the number of civil servants across the United Kingdom by more than 100,000 in recent years. That is partly why the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the Cabinet Office is leading our work on rethinking the size and shape of the British state. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in recognising that we have a responsibility to try and clean up the mess. That is what we are doing.