Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

What a pleasure it is to follow the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox). I feel that he overstretched himself by describing SNP Members as anti-trade, given that his Government and his party have overseen the first four months of Brexit and a 33% slump in exports to the EU from the UK. However, let me try to start on a point of agreement with the Secretary of State, who has now left her place. It is good to see the US tariffs on Scotch whisky dropped—that is welcome—but Scotch whisky should never have been put in such a position in the first place.

While any, even tiny, opportunity to make up some ground on Brexit losses should be explored, it is clear that no deal this Government can strike will make up for what Brexit has already taken away from us. It is clear that the potential positives of this proposal are minuscule and the risks are much larger. The Government’s very own figures—buried deep in the environmental notes—point to growth in their long-term forecast of just 0.08% to 0.09% of GDP over 15 years. That is scant reward for the trade-offs on control over regulations and standards required, and it is a drop in the Pacific compared with not only the lost trade for Scottish and other UK companies, but the massive increases in the cost of goods that they have incurred. The simple fact is that here we have a Government desperate to get free trade agreements for their own sake, while ignoring industry and the advice of trade experts.

[Emily Thornberry]

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, who is making a very interesting speech. Can I just ask him to look again at page 65 of the document? He cited the figure as 0.08%, but it is much lower, because the 0.08% includes Malaysia joining, and Malaysia has made it perfectly clear that it is very much having cold feet because of the ISDS provisions.

[Drew Hendry]

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for that clarification, and she is indeed right. There I was being generous to the Government about the effects; I will certainly try to learn the lesson there.

The Government have ignored industry and the advice of trade experts just to prove their own self-harming political point. They were warned that the precedents of the Australia deal would inevitably lead to other countries demanding the same capitulations, but they said that that would not happen. Now the New Zealand Trade Minister is on record demanding zero-tariff access to UK markets as a result, and of course others are following. In negotiations on the CPTPP, the UK cannot decline to align on too many areas, such as ISDS, agrifoods, consumer standards and more, and still expect to become a member.

In short, if the UK joins, the consequences are very likely to be disastrous. In all of the nations of the UK, the farming unions have stressed the importance of protecting the UK’s current high food and farming standards. After a calamitous few months for the food and drink sector across the UK, almost every organisation representing Scottish agrifood interests has written to the UK Government calling on them finally to take Scottish interests into account over negotiations with the CPTPP’s Australia.

Having failed in their duty over consultation with industry, devolved Administrations and regulators, the Government have of course failed to give this Parliament a meaningful vote, so let us ask the Government: will they bring forward a meaningful vote on the CPTPP? I will give the Minister the opportunity to respond if he would like to do so.

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

I will respond at the end.

[Drew Hendry]

Okay.

[Emily Thornberry]

The Minister says no.

[Drew Hendry]

It is a no.

What assessment has been made of the failed TTIP deal, on which the CPTPP is based? It contains a TTIP-style regulatory co-operation chapter, risking the abandonment of standards through forums that were notoriously devoid of any scrutiny. The Tories have had plenty of opportunity to enshrine current standards of consumer protections—including for agricultural produce, pesticides and animal rights, and also for digital rights, workers’ rights, environmental standards and the independence of public services such as the NHS—yet they have failed to do so at every turn. The Home Secretary herself is on record as saying that Brexit was an opportunity for widespread deregulation, and of course she was not alone. It is easy to see why the Scottish public do not trust them over the warm words they put forward.

An investor-state dispute mechanism is a key provision within the CPTPP. It allows firms to sue Governments for measures that harm their profits. This can result in very negative impacts on the environment and regulation designed to combat climate change. There is also evidence of ISDS being used to challenge health provision and labour rights. Will the Minister confirm that the UK will not agree to ISDS as part of the CPTPP? It is likely that CPTPP membership would see a rise in the amount of pesticides and antibiotics in food imports. Thousands of times the amount of carcinogens such as iprodione are allowed in produce from CPTPP members as they are in current UK equivalent foodstuffs. One hundred and nineteen pesticides currently banned in the UK are allowed for use by certain CPTPP members. How can the UK Government exclude those products and guarantee that they will never appear on our supermarket shelves if they sign up? Of course, they cannot. Malaysia, a CPTPP member, is actively manoeuvring to reverse the ban on palm oil extracts, which are notorious for causing deforestation, leading to increases in greenhouse gas emissions.

[John Spellar]

Can the hon. Member tell us which countries he thinks Britain can do trade deals with?

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

With a time limit of five minutes, I call Angus Brendan MacNeil.