Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Conor Burns and Brendan O'Hara(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Conor Burns
I understand that the hon. Lady attended a briefing yesterday on the negotiations, led by our brilliant chief negotiator. She asks whether we are pursuing concurrent trade negotiations with the EU and the United States. The answer is yes we are, in exactly the same way that the EU is currently negotiating with the United States.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
Further to that question and to the question asked by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), I want to be absolutely clear about one thing: there is no such thing as an Australian free trade deal with the EU. An Australia-terms Brexit is actually a no-deal Brexit, and no amount of spin or repackaging can hide that fact. Does the Minister think that no deal is an acceptable outcome, given the near apocalyptic conclusions of his own Government’s Yellowhammer report, which talked about two and a half day waits at ports for lorries? Is that acceptable?
Conor Burns
A free trade agreement with the European Union is our ambition, and we hope that it shares that ambition. Our ambition is also to engage in free trade negotiations, which the Secretary of State is leading on, with the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Japan in the first instance. I can tell the hon. Gentleman and sceptics on the Opposition Benches that the interest in the opportunities for the United Kingdom to engage bilaterally around the world, now that we control our own independent trade policy for the first time in almost 50 years, is almost unquenchable—I think of the conversations we have had in the last six months with the Gulf Co-operation Council, Vietnam, Brazil, Chile, Morocco, Algeria and Commonwealth Trade Ministers. I just hope that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents will welcome the opportunities that we are giving them to trade with the world and enjoy ever increasing prosperity.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Conor Burns and Brendan O'Hara(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Conor Burns
As a distinguished parliamentarian, the hon. Lady knows how this House works. She will have ample opportunity to scrutinise the trade Bill during its passage through Parliament and, if she wishes, to make amendments to the Bill, which can then be considered by the House. I wish that the Opposition would stop peddling this lie, which is worrying people, about the NHS and the United States. The Prime Minister has made it repeatedly clear that the NHS is not on the table in any trade agreement. She should stop scaremongering.
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
US Tariffs: Scotch Whisky
Debate between Conor Burns and Brendan O'Hara(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Conor Burns
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is a doughty champion for his constituents and the commercial interests in his constituency. I was aware of the presence of Walkers Shortbread in his constituency and the fact that it exports more than £29 million a year and is a significant local employer. Before coming to the House, I asked for a list of all Members who represent Scottish constituencies and how many distilleries they have in their constituency. I was more than surprised to find that my hon. Friend has a significant number—I think more than 40—in his constituency, which makes the following offer very easy to make: I would be delighted to visit him in his constituency and see some of those distilleries, and perhaps also Walkers Shortbread.
As for what we can do to get this message across, the United States ambassador to the UK, Ambassador Johnson, is known to many of us, and he is known to be very close to President Trump. I encourage all Members across the House to contact the American ambassador and make him aware of the strength of feeling on this subject in this House and across the country.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
As the Minister will find out, it is quality rather than quantity that counts when it comes to Scotch whisky. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Scotch whisky, I have no doubt that these tariffs will have a hugely negative impact on one of our most important, successful and growing industries. The Scotch whisky industry employs 11,000 people directly. I encourage UK Ministers to do everything they can to resolve this as quickly as possible, because it is in no one’s interests to have a trade war like this, where everybody will almost inevitably end up on the losing side and jobs, confidence and future investment will be affected. I fear that these tariffs will disproportionately impact on the small independent distilleries, of which there are many in my Argyll and Bute constituency and, indeed, across the economically fragile, rural parts of Scotland.
The Minister listed a number of conversations that have been had, but I would like him to clarify what conversations have taken place since Thursday with both the EU and the United States? Is it not the case that a post-Brexit, isolated UK would have much less negotiating power than it currently has as part of one of the world’s largest trade blocs when it comes to fending off someone like Donald Trump?
Conor Burns
I am going to resist the temptation to launch on the last point. Tempting as it is, I would rather try to keep a degree of consensus on the issue, but I would say this to the hon. Gentleman. He opened by saying that it is quality, not quantity, that counts. I think that has been the cry of many down the generations. A trade war would be in no one’s interests: there will be no winners in a trade war. The thing that I think agitates and upsets us most about this, as I said earlier, is that those who have done absolutely nothing in the Airbus-Boeing dispute, with the rights and wrongs on both sides, and people who have had absolutely nothing to do with that, going back so many years, will now be hurt and harmed if these tariffs come into play. We will continue to use every opportunity to convey to our friends in the United States that this is—