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

Craig Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

As we seek to recover from coronavirus, it is incredibly important that we protect and expand our exports, which represent 31% of the UK economy and include vital industries such as the steel industry, the car industry and the food and drink industry. We must find new markets for those exports and link to fast-growing parts of the world. We must also protect against protectionism. One of the benefits of signing free trade agreements is avoiding tariffs on our goods and services, and CPTPP represents 13% of the global economy—16% if we add the UK—and includes fast-growing parts of the world. At a time when we are seeking to revive the economy, this is exactly the type of agreement we should be joining. In parallel, of course, we are negotiating with the EU to secure a good agreement with it. It is not an either/or; we need to be trading with all the world.

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Montgomeryshire has many Japanese-owned manufacturing businesses and the UK’s largest livestock market ready to ship Welsh lamb across the world at the drop of a hat. I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Given that Japan accounts for nearly half of the GDP of this partnership, what outreach have we done with our close economic friends and allies, what are the Japanese Government saying about our accession, and what support can we rely on from our allies to help us accede to this great partnership?

[Elizabeth Truss]

Japan is a very important partner of the UK, and we are separately negotiating our bilateral trade agreement, but when I spoke to Minister Motegi, who is responsible for negotiating on Japan’s behalf, he was very clear that he supported the UK’s accession to CPTPP. We are also pursuing accession with Australia and New Zealand. These bilateral partnerships are a way of accessing that wider arrangement in Asia- Pacific. My hon. Friend is right—there are huge export opportunities for Britain into Japan and huge investment opportunities for British firms into Japan and for Japanese firms into the UK.