Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

David Linden Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry]

There is an entire continent in Europe that we could be doing trade with. This is the thing: we have had a 33% drop in trade with the EU in the first four months since Brexit was implemented in January, and CPTPP membership would be a literal drop in the ocean in trying to replace that trade.

As I was saying, palm oil is notorious for causing deforestation, leading to increases in greenhouse gas emissions. Will the Minister therefore confirm for the House that the UK will enforce a ban on palm oil? What climate change assessments have been made of the impacts of the deal on the UK’s climate change commitments?

Currently, 85% of the UK’s exports to CPTPP members are to Australia, Canada, Japan and Singapore, and the UK already has free trade agreements with seven of the 11 members through agreements made while the UK was a member of the EU. The only real driving force for Brexit Britain to join a trade alliance on the other side of the world is political. It is not economic. Scotland has been dragged out of the EU against its wishes and, as I have said—I will repeat it again—in the first four months of leaving that single market, UK trade exports to the EU have plummeted by 33%, trade for businesses has been hammered, and the costs of goods for industries, including distilleries, have shot up by 20%.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend made the point earlier about welcoming—it would be churlish not to do so—the dropping of tariffs on Scotch whisky. He will be aware that I am the chair of the Scotch whisky all-party parliamentary group. Will he join me in calling on the Government to respond to the alcohol duty review that they have been sitting on for six months? The Scotch whisky sector will need as much support as possible to get back on its feet, so will he join me in calling on the Treasury Bench to get on with it and give the sector more support?

[Drew Hendry]

I absolutely concur with my hon. Friend the chair of the Scotch whisky all-party parliamentary group. The past four months have been devastating. In that same period, Scottish fishermen have been sold out, Scottish farmers have been betrayed, and powers to protect our regulations and standards—and even our NHS—have been steamrollered by this Government. The agreement does nothing to rectify that. That is why more people every day are realising that Scotland needs to be an independent country to make the right choices to protect our food and drink industry, our farmers, our crofters, our NHS and our people.