Oral Answers to Questions

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Let me begin by welcoming the Secretary of State to her new role. May I associate myself with the remarks that she made about the late David Amess. He was an enthusiastic and lively participant in International Trade questions, as he was with everything that he turned his mind to.

I also look forward to studying the Secretary of State’s response to the Trade and Agriculture Commission report, which I have just learned will be released with a written ministerial statement later today.

On page 54 of the International Trade Department’s June 2020 paper on the strategic approach to free trade with New Zealand, it forecast that an agreement along the lines that I understand the Government announced last night will cause

“a reduction in output and employment…in the UK agriculture sector.”

Does that remain the Secretary of State’s forecast for the impact of last night’s deal?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I will be making an oral statement to the House shortly and I am sure that we all look forward to discussing this issue in more detail. I am very confident that the deal that we struck will provide the opportunity for our wonderful food producers to continue to sell their goods across the world, and, as we make more trade deals, create new markets for them.

[Emily Thornberry]

I thank the Secretary of State for her answer, but it does rather illustrate why we need a new Trade and Agriculture Commission to provide an independent assessment. After all, last November, the previous Secretary of State told the National Farmers’ Union in Wales:

“We have no intention of ever striking a deal that doesn’t benefit farmers, but we have provided checks and balances in the form of the Trade and Agriculture Commission.”

Can the Secretary of State confirm that the new TAC will be asked to examine the proposed deals with Australia and New Zealand and tell us simply whether these deals benefit our farmers?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The new TAC will be charged with some very clear direction, and given independence for it to be able to scrutinise both the Australian and New Zealand trade deals and all the other trade deals that we are looking to strike in the months and years ahead.

--- Later in debate ---

[Penny Mordaunt]

My hon. Friend is right, and he is doing his damnedest to make sure that Rugby is at the front of the queue in that respect. To support his businesses, we are delivering an export promotion campaign that positions exporting as a route to growth, prosperity and job creation. The campaign will encourage businesses to seize the opportunities from trade deals, while directing them to our new export support services.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I also welcome the Minister for Trade Policy, the right hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), to her new role.

I have already mentioned the forecast that the deal with New Zealand will cost jobs in our farming communities. Has the Minister had a chance to read that? I also want to ask her about exports and growth. Is it correct, as her Department says on page 54 of the document, that under the terms of the deal New Zealand’s exports to the UK will increase by five times as much as UK exports to New Zealand, and that, as it says on page 58, New Zealand’s GDP will grow by half a billion pounds while the UK’s GDP will not increase by a single penny? Will the Minister tell us whether those figures are right?

[Penny Mordaunt]

Missing from the right hon. Lady’s question was any timeframe. The Opposition need to appreciate that we are building and increasing these markets. Over time, the numbers will go up, because we have given our businesses and farmers the opportunity to do that, and because we have faith in those businesses and farmers to seize those opportunities that we give them. I hope that the right hon. Lady and her Opposition colleagues will be cheerleaders in that respect.

[Emily Thornberry]

I am just reading the figures from the Minister’s Department and there is a real problem: this is now the third Asia-Pacific agreement in a row—Japan, Australia and now New Zealand—where more than 80% of the growth in trade projected by her own Department has gone to exporters in those other countries and less than 20% has gone to exporters in the UK. The Government say that they are tilting to Asia. I have to say, I think that Asia is taking us to the cleaners. While the Minister is still relatively new, will she sit down with her new boss and tell the Department that enough is enough—that we need trade deals that deliver for Britain, and we need jobs, exports and growth?

[Penny Mordaunt]

Nine trillion pounds—that is what these deals, and ultimately the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, will mean to this country. Yes, we have three deals, and we are going to get more. That is what we want to do. We are going to grow these markets. That is the whole point of our leaving the EU and formulating this plan for global Britain. These deals will increase growth and prosperity in this country, which will fund everything that matters to all Members of this House.

Free Trade Agreement: New Zealand

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. While there is much to digest from last night’s agreement, I hope she will forgive me if, in the short time that I have, I focus on the impact of the deal on our farming communities.

As I have already mentioned today, according to the Government’s own forecasts, this deal will lead to reductions in growth and jobs in the UK’s farming sector because, as the scoping paper says,

“New Zealand producers may be able to supply UK retailers and UK producers at lower cost relative to domestic producers.”

In those circumstances, any other Government would normally keep in place quotas to stop their farmers from being undercut, but, just like with the Australia deal, our Government have set those quotas so high as to be utterly meaningless. In year 1 of this new deal, New Zealand can export four times as much lamb as it did last year before any tariffs kick in; it can export more butter to Britain than it has done in the past six years put together before facing a single tariff; and it can export 25 times more beef, entirely tariff-free, as it can right now with a 20% tariff. For all practical purposes, this deal therefore gives us unlimited, tariff-free trade from New Zealand to go with unlimited, tariff-free trade already agreed with Australia, confirming this as the precedent that every other major exporter will now expect to follow. Not just that, but we are eliminating the tariffs on dozens of products from Australia and New Zealand that fall well short of our domestic welfare standards. This includes our domestic restrictions on antibiotics, whose production is doing huge damage to the environment.

These are bad deals for our farming industry. They will undermine the competitiveness of our farmers and the standards that they are required to maintain. In other words, these deals are exactly what the Trade and Agriculture Commission was established to prevent. That brings me to the appointment of the new TAC members confirmed by the Secretary of State earlier and to the written ministerial statement, which the House has just received, containing her response to the TAC report, seven and a half months after it was submitted.

There are two crucial issues at stake in those announcements, and they are inextricably linked to the deals with Australia and New Zealand. The first concerns the TAC’s recommendations to establish a national framework of standards covering food safety, animal welfare and the environment, and to use that framework to determine which imports from Australia and New Zealand should benefit from the elimination of tariffs. We know that that recommendation is entirely feasible and entirely practical, because DEFRA Ministers are currently consulting on applying exactly the same principle when it comes to labelling food products for their impact on animal welfare. Their consultation proposes a clear distinction between

“baseline UK welfare regulations which UK farmers are required to meet”

and “imports of lower welfare” that are undercutting our farmers.

May I ask the Secretary of State three questions? Why has she rejected the recommendation on the use of a standards framework to determine the scope of tariff reductions? Can she confirm that, as a result, a number of products described by DEFRA as “imports of lower welfare” will have their tariffs reduced under the deals with Australia and New Zealand? Can she explain why it is possible to differentiate on standards when it comes to labels placed on imports, but not on the tariffs they face?

The second fundamental issue is around the role of the TAC in relation to Australia and New Zealand. Members of Parliament, the media, the public and, most of all, our farming communities were repeatedly promised last November that the new TAC would provide Parliament with an assessment of every trade deal for how it would affect the competitiveness of UK farmers and whether it would undercut the standards they are required to meet. No matter how that role was defined in statute, we all know what we were promised. If the new TAC is not going to assess these two trade deals in that way, not only is that utterly shameful, but it will turn the TAC into a total waste of time.

I hope the Secretary of State will honour those promises, because if we ever needed a better illustration of why we need the TAC to perform that role, we have it in the deals agreed with New Zealand and Australia. That is why it is more vital and more urgent than ever that the new TAC should be able to do the job that the House was promised and act as the voice of the farmer when it comes to passing verdict on these two new deals. I ask the Secretary of State again: will she let the TAC do its job?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I will do my best to answer the right hon. Lady’s questions. We are really pleased. The deal is really balanced and brings lots of exciting opportunities for our businesses and our consumers. We will see customs duties on 100% of tariff lines for originating products removed. The UK will eliminate tariffs on 96.7% of tariff lines on the day the FTA comes into force, and New Zealand will eliminate 100% on the day the FTA comes into force.

On beef, the UK will remove duties after 10 years, and the quota volume will increase in equal annual instalments to ensure that the markets can stabilise and grow as required. To the right hon. Lady’s point about the increase in sheepmeat capacity, the interesting thing with New Zealand is that it already has a much larger World Trade Organisation quota that it does not use with the UK because, as we discussed earlier, it has the opportunity to sell many of its meat products into the Asian markets, where it gets high prices. We are therefore not expecting New Zealand to use these quotas in these early years, but we look to the opportunity for us to work for mutual benefit. For butter, full liberalisation will be over a five-year period, and it is similar for cheese.

This is a really exciting deal, and not only for the food and agriculture sector. There is a huge amount of opportunity for our businesses, looking at the digital space in particular and service provision. I reiterate—we will keep saying it until the Opposition are willing to be comfortable with it, if required—that we will never compromise standards for food coming into the UK. I had an interesting conversation with a farmer just last week, who was perhaps more forward-thinking than some Opposition Members. As we have different pests and different soil types, the sorts of products used in other countries may be different, but that does not mean that the quality, standard or welfare is lower. We will always be clear that we will not accept the lowering of standards. We appreciate that different countries have to manage their climatic and environmental situations in different ways, so that will continue to be the case.

I am pleased that the right hon. Lady has seen the written ministerial statement just put out by the Department on the TAC response and the launch of the new Trade and Agriculture Commission, which will be independent. It will have the opportunity to scrutinise all those free trade deals as they come forward, including, in the first instance, the New Zealand and Australia deals, once we have brought them to a full signed conclusion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There has been a worrying rise in protectionism in recent years and I am proud that the UK is leading the way in liberalising trade, striking new free trade deals to bring more jobs and growth as we seek to build back better after covid. At the same time, we are defending UK industry against unfair practices.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I hope that the Secretary of State has had a productive visit to the United States. She will have seen the example set by the Biden Administration when it comes to taking concrete action against the use of slave labour and the abuse of workers’ rights in countries ranging from Malaysia to Mexico. By contrast, may I ask her to name a country—one will do—with which the UK has a trade deal where she has taken any action of any kind to enforce the rights of workers?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are extremely committed to making sure not only that we stand up for high standards across the globe, that our workers here in the United Kingdom are protected and that we do not diminish our workers’ rights, but that we work together with other countries to do that. I point to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, which has a very strong labour chapter, for example insisting on minimum wages and the recognition of trade union rights. I look forward to the right hon. Lady’s support for our accession to that agreement.

[Emily Thornberry]

The shocking reality is that more than a third of our non-EU deals have been with countries where workers’ rights are systematically denied or violated, and in not a single case has the Secretary of State done anything about it. That is not good enough when slave labour is on the rise around the world and it is women, children, migrants and minorities who are too often the victims. Will she take a lesson from the Biden Administration, stop turning a blind eye to the abuse of workers’ rights by our own trade partners and start taking action against them instead?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I am very proud of the role that the United Kingdom has played in setting very high labour standards and looking for them in the trade agreements that we are working on. That is part of our discussions with the CPTPP countries. I have also been talking to leading figures in the US about how we can ensure strong labour rights in future US agreements.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

The current UK-Israel partnership is already worth £5 billion a year, but we want to turbo-charge that. We are providing practical assistance for UK firms through our trade adviser network, as well as strong support from UK Export Finance to help to finance those exports into Israel.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

We all welcome the prospect of an enhanced trade deal with Israel, and I congratulate the Secretary of State on her efforts to secure it. Among the many improvements that we hope the new deal delivers, will she guarantee to remove the clause mistakenly included in the 2019 UK-Israel agreement that prohibits manufacturers in UK freeports from sharing in the benefits of that deal? Can she tell us when we can expect revised deals with the 20 other countries, including Switzerland and Singapore, where the same freeport blunder still applies?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The clauses that the right hon. Lady is referring to are absolutely standard in free trade agreements. Every agreement is the result of a negotiation with the relevant country, and of course we secure the best possible outcome in terms of tariff reductions and rules of origin, but I will be absolutely clear that firms locating in our freeports are free to take advantage of whichever is better for their company: a given free trade agreement or the additional reductions from being in that freeport.

Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for holding this debate. I do, however, feel obliged to point out that she has brought us here today to discuss Britain’s accession to an agreement which, as things stand, and according to the Government’s own figures, will add a maximum of 0.017% to UK GDP, yet on Monday, when the House discussed the urgent threat to the British steel industry, which is worth six times that amount to our GDP and has 34,000 jobs directly at stake, the Secretary of State could not even be bothered to turn up. Let me just say, on behalf of all the Labour MPs who spoke in that debate and the steel communities they represent, that I hope the Secretary of State was watching and that in the six days we have left before our steel safeguards expire, she will listen to reason, accept that she has been wrong, and take emergency action to keep our steel safeguards before it is too late.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I wholeheartedly agree, on behalf of the steelworkers and steel industry in my constituency, with the point that my right hon. Friend makes. The Government are pretending that there is nothing they can do on steel safeguards, leaving our markets unprotected and undermining our whole industry. This is a real chance for the Government now, and at this point in time our UK steel industry cannot afford for it to fail.

[Emily Thornberry]

My hon. Friend is quite right. I recommend that the Secretary of State read the speeches of many Members in that last debate. I have to say that it reminds me of reading, in March, the Department for International Trade’s report “Global Britain, local jobs”, in which it purported to tell us how many jobs in each region and constituency were dependent on trade. It did not mention any jobs in steel or agriculture. I thought at the time that that was a mistake, but I fear that actually it looks more like a forecast.

We ought, perhaps, to turn to the CPTPP. I have three key quotes to put to the Secretary of State from esteemed figures in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, all of which I hope will illuminate what is actually going on in the accession process—certainly rather more than the Government have to date.

The Secretary of State will recognise my first quote, because it was said directly to her last July when she was discussing the CPTPP with the former Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. “The UK,” he told her,

“is going to have to identify what are its offensive interests and what are its defensive red flags…You can seek tailor-made provisions,”

but

“the other countries are going to have a…take-it-or-leave-it approach…That is a big decision for the UK.”

It is indeed a big decision, but before the negotiations have even begun, the Secretary of State has apparently conceded defeat. Indeed, reading the Government’s so-called negotiating objectives, this appears to be the only negotiation in British history in which the objective is to accept everything the other side wants as quickly as possible, with not one single demand of our own. There is not one single clause in the thousands of pages that make up the agreement where the Government will seek any exemptions or amendments to reflect Britain’s interests. That is the literal definition of being rule takers and not rule makers.

Even when the Government make a veiled reference in their document to the prospect of China joining the CPTPP, the best they can offer in response is the assertion:

“We would only ever support applicants who meet CPTPP’s high standards on rules-based free and fair trade.”

In other words, they have no opinion of their own on whether a back-door deal with China is an acceptable prospect for Britain, and no concerns at all about the Uyghurs, slave labour or genocide. All they can say instead is that China will have to obey the same trade rules as us. That weak acceptance from the Government that we cannot change the CPTPP rules is deeply worrying when it comes to protecting our NHS, our food standards and other defensive concerns.

It is also deeply frustrating when it comes to promoting the interests of British business and the adoption of British standards in the trans-Pacific region. Why are the Government not using the accession process to press for improvements to the current provisions on financial services, small businesses and mutual recognition of qualifications? Why is the Secretary of State not arguing for new chapters to cover educational exports, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and co-operation on new technology? Why are the Government not seeking to strengthen the agreement when it comes to protection of labour rights, animal welfare and the environment? The Government are doing none of those things.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

The right hon. Lady must know that the CPTPP preserves the member states’ right to regulate for themselves. Will she not accept that that is one of the attractions of these arrangements compared with the EU, which we have just left precisely to recover control of our own regulation?

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but it is palpable nonsense. We can have whatever standards we want in our own country, but if we are allowing those standards to be undermined by cheap imports that are made to different standards, we are essentially saying to our producers or our farmers, “You can keep our standards and you can go out of business.” Frankly, every other country in the world negotiates trade agreements in the interests of that country, but at the moment this country seems to be negotiating trade agreements in order to prove a political point, and that political point is that Brexit works. Frankly, I think that we should be putting our country’s interests first and foremost, rather than petty point-scoring. This is very dangerous behaviour.

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way on the petty point-scoring point?

[Emily Thornberry]

The hon. Gentleman is an expert at it, and I will of course give way.

[Craig Williams]

I defer to the right hon. Lady’s knowledge of that. May I ask her directly whether she will go further, beyond the petty point-scoring, and tell us whether the Labour party supports joining this partnership or not?

[Emily Thornberry]

I will of course get to that in the later part of my speech and I hope that the hon. Gentleman listens carefully.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

Earlier, the Secretary of State said that people are knocking down the door to do business with Britain, but is not it time we were a bit fussier about who we let through our door, especially when it comes to genocide, forced labour, and people who want to trade with us who we should morally object to?

[Emily Thornberry]

My hon. Friend makes a good point that Ministers should remember a little more actively.

The Government are joining the agreement with no ambition to improve its deficiencies, no attempt to deal with its threats and no effort to make it work in Britain’s interests. The trouble is that, when someone goes into a negotiation looking as if they are willing to accept anything in the deal, they come across to the other party as if they will do anything to get it. That brings me to the second quote, by the Secretary of State’s Australian counterpart, Dan Tehan. He said of the recent negotiations:

“We’ve been very clear with the UK that… they’ll need a gold standard FTA with us if they’re going to have a realistic chance of joining the CPTPP”

because

“We have a very large say in what accession looks like”.

There it is: the man the Secretary of State threatened with an uncomfortable chair ended up holding her over a barrel.

Let us look at the consequences. As the price for UK access to the CPTPP and the 0.017% that will be added to GDP, the Secretary of State was willing to accept every single demand from Australia when it came to tariff-free, quota-free access for their cheap and cruelly produced meat.

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

Oh!

[Emily Thornberry]

The Minister says, “Oh! Oh!” Does he know what mulesing is? I suggest that he finds out, then looks us in the eye and tells us whether there are cruel practices in Australia.

No wonder Dan Tehan said that the Austalian National Farmers Federation was “over the moon” when he told them about the deal he had struck, while farmers up and down Britain curse it as a betrayal. Kit Papworth is the director of a farm business in Norfolk—perhaps he is a constituent of the Secretary of State’s. He said:

“The deal is an absolute dereliction of everything that farmers have been promised… It is farmers being sold down the river once again… while agriculture… is being left… to die.”

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I thought it was surprising that we did not hear more from Secretary of State, as a former EFRA Secretary, about farming standards. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the concerns that she has so eloquently expressed make it all the more important that we have proper scrutiny of the deal and not something that just rubber-stamps it at the last minute?

[Emily Thornberry]

That is absolutely right. I saw an article in The Daily Telegraph this week by Jeremy Warner, which said, “It is vitally important that FTAs are pursued in a transparent and accountable manner that takes fully on board the interests, fears and concerns of domestic constituencies and affected sectors. The battle for free trade needs to be won as much at home as abroad.” That is why we need to know whether we will get a proper debate and votes in this place. The Secretary of State has said nothing about whether Parliament will get a vote either on the negotiating objectives or on a deal at the end of the day.

[Marco Longhi]

The shadow Secretary of State quotes articles. Does she agree with the article in the Socialist Worker that states that protectionism will not protect workers’ jobs?

[Emily Thornberry]

No.

Let us move on to New Zealand and Canada. Having seen what has happened with Australia, they will surely demand the same deal for their farmers as the price of support for UK accession to CPTPP. Handshake by handshake, the future of British farming will be sold.

The threat to our country’s interests lies not just in what the Secretary of State is willing to do, or in the interests that she is willing to sacrifice as the price of admission to the agreement, but in what will happen once we are in the door. That brings me to my next quote, which is typically pithy and to the point, from New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. She said that investor-state dispute settlement “is a dog”.

When she inherited the CPTPP negotiations at the last minute in 2017, the new New Zealand Prime Minister was willing to jeopardise the entire process to demand that New Zealand be exempted from the provisions on investor-state dispute settlement. She did not want the threat of lawsuits in the name of wealthy foreign corporations restricting her ability to introduce policies for the protection of consumers, workers, the environment and public health policy. For the same reason, we have had no IDS—or, rather, ISDS—[Interruption.] Well, it was a Freudian slip. That is why we have had no ISDS provisions in any of the post-Brexit trade agreements signed by the Government with 67 non-EU countries, with the European Union and with Australia. So when it comes to CPTPP, why are the Government not simply following New Zealand’s lead and demanding an exemption from the provisions on ISDS? Again, it goes back to the big decision taken by the Secretary of State that what matters most is not minimising the risks of this deal, maximising the opportunities and making it right for Britain, but simply getting it done as quickly as possible, even if that means selling out our farming industry and exposing our country to the risks of ISDS.

It is apparently okay, though, because in respect of all of those risks the Government simply assert that we have nothing to fear. We have the same assurances with respect to food safety, online harms, patent laws, procurement rules, data protection, medicine prices, intellectual property and our NHS, and that is all without mentioning the 22 suspended provisions in the agreement, which the strategy document simply ignores. We are simply told that none of those provisions will be a problem for the UK and that we should trust the Government—we should trust the Government to protect our interests, even though they cannot tell us how. Instead of exemptions, we are reliant on assertions. Instead of amendments they offer us assurances. I respectfully say to the Secretary of State that we have had enough of the Government’s assurances when it comes to negotiations on trade, the Northern Ireland protocol, non-tariff barriers with Europe, and the betrayal of our fishing industry, our farming industry and our steel industry. We have had enough of being told by them just to take their word for it and everything will turn out fine and all our interests will be protected.

The reason this matters so much is because it is this Secretary of State who stands personally accused of saying one thing to the British farming industry and another for the sake of CPTPP. If she is willing to break her promises to the farming community that she represents, why would not she do the same to the health service on which we all depend? That is why, while the Labour party remains committed to the possibilities that joining the CPTPP offers, we will continue to demand a fresh approach to the accession process, starting with proper protection for our farmers and food standards, total exemption from the provisions on ISDS, and a complete carve-out for our national health service, patient data included.

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

rose—

[Emily Thornberry]

I am about to finish so I will not give way again.

I was talking about the importance of negotiating a deal where there would be specific demands and where there would be carve-outs. All those things may take more time than the Secretary of State would like and it may be a harder negotiation than those she is used to, but none of that should matter when what we are trying to do is get what is best for Britain.

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[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.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Tapadh leibh, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I also thank the Secretary of State for the debate. It is good to see the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), the former Secretary of State, in his place. The International Trade Committee had many interactions with him in his old role.

Dominic Cummings was right, or at least partially right, in some of his utterances this week. In particular, he was correct when he said that politicians have been obsessed with trade deals that are not that significant when it comes to economic growth and drawing lines on maps. I am not sure what other howitzers he will be sending the way of the UK Government, but I do not think that will be the last.

When we come to trade deals, trade, the issue of Brexit and the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, the important things are numbers. When we look beyond the flowery language, we see that even the Government’s own figures show we are talking about 0.08% of GDP—that is £1.8 billion. We have to take that in the context of Brexit, which is a 4.9% damage event to the UK economy. It is like saying, “I had £4.90 and I threw it over my shoulder, and now I’m scrabbling around on the other side of the world for 8p”. That is the ratio difference we are talking about. The Australian deal is worth 2p, and an American deal would be worth 20p. A New Zealand deal might give us another penny and the Canadian deal is worth about 3p, so all in all, we have thrown away about £4.90 and are hoping to get back, with what I have talked about there, 30-odd pence.

[Emily Thornberry]

The points that the hon. Gentleman is making are very important, and Government Members ought to listen to them carefully. Quite a lot has been made of the statistic of a 65% increase in trade projected for this region by 2030, but on close examination of the document, is it not right that that projected increase in trade is one that Government figures show would happen irrespective of whether the UK joins the CPTPP?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The right hon. Lady makes that point in her own way, and I do not want to go into it too much given that the clock is still ticking.

The comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership is not actually as comprehensive as it seems. Only seven out of the 11 countries have actually ratified it. Malaysia, Chile, Peru and Brunei have not. When we take out their GDP contributions, the figure goes down to 0.5% of GDP, or 5p that is available from the CPTPP to recover the £4.90 that has been lost by Brexit.

That is as far as we can go with the good news. I am now going to have to give the House some bad news. This morning, Neale Richmond, the Irish TD, who is never off our screens and is a fantastic representative of Ireland, brought to my attention in a tweet that the Republic of Ireland now has, for the first time ever, a trade surplus with the UK, as UK exports to the Republic of Ireland are down 47.6%. That is £2 billion of trade gone. Remember that the UK was talking about a £1.8 billion increase from the CPTPP. With Ireland alone, the damage of Brexit has wiped out what could be gained from the CPTPP.

There may be some good news in Ireland, depending on people’s constitutional stance. North-south exports are certainly up and are making for a far more integrated economy, with a 22.4% increase in exports to Northern Ireland from the Republic and a 44.2% increase in imports to the Republic from the north. That is against the background that my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) pointed out of the 33% fall in trade that has been truly damaging the economy. The Secretary of State said earlier that we were putting our eggs in one trade basket. It looks as though we do not have any eggs in any trade basket, the way it is going at the moment. Certainly, from my talks with the British Egg Industry Council and the British Poultry Council, it is very much a real-life chicken-and-egg situation as to which way this is going.

I also want to point out some privacy issues. I have had correspondence from constituents that I want to bring to the Government’s attention, and I am sure that they know what I am talking about—making sure that people’s data is actually safe and is not traded around to second, third and fourth parties in a global context.

I also want to raise the issue of patent attorneys. UK patent attorneys are a fifth of the number of patent attorneys in the European patent convention, and they do a third of the work at a value of about £746 million. Let us take that away from what is left of the CPTPP—the 0.5%, or £1.1 billion. If this damages the UK patent attorneys’ relationship with the European patent convention, it would just about negate everything from the CPTPP, and there is a very real possibility that this could happen. UK patent attorneys are flagging this up constantly. The Government should be well aware that we are now talking about not a 0.8% or a 0.5% gain from GDP, but perhaps only a 0.2% gain. So we are down to 2p after throwing away the £4.90 that I referred to earlier.

What are we left with? We have thrown away £2 billion with Ireland, and might gain a few hundred million with the CPTPP. We are risking our farming and crofting trade with Australia and much else. We have walked away from our partners next door, as my hon. Friend pointed out. It might be strategic, but what do we say to people who are losing their jobs and to the businesses that do not grow because of this economic damage? I do not think the Government have an answer. This appears to be a Government wanting to come back waving bits of paper, much like Neville Chamberlain, and shouting “Trade deals in our time”. It is not good enough for anybody who is trying to make a living up and down the nations of the current UK.

Protecting Britain’s Steel Industry

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes the British steel industry, and the livelihoods and communities it supports, should not be undermined by unfair competition from overseas; regrets that the Trade Remedies Authority has not accounted for the interconnectedness of the British steel industry, nor the impact of safeguard tariffs being maintained in the US and EU, when recommending the abolition of nine of the 19 existing safeguards on steel products; accordingly requires the Government to take urgent action by legislating to allow Ministers to reject the Trade Remedies Authority’s recommendation and temporarily extend the current safeguards; and orders that, at the sitting on Monday 28 June, Standing Order No. 14(1) shall not apply, and that precedence at that sitting shall be given instead to any Business of the House motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition which may be moved at the commencement of public business that day to make provision for urgent legislative action to protect the vital interests of the British steel industry.

The motion before us disagrees with the recommendations of the Trade Remedies Authority to revoke half the current safeguards protecting our nation’s steel industry against potential floods of cheap imports. It requires the Government to bring forward emergency legislation, allowing them to reject those recommendations and extend all the current safeguards before they expire on 30 June. Finally, it makes provision for the Leader of the Opposition to enable the emergency legislation to be considered next Monday if the Government fail to do so themselves.

It is a pleasure to open this debate. It is a testament to the urgency and importance of the issues before us that so many Members have registered to speak. For that reason, I will not be taking many interventions. I believe that there are 24 Labour Back Benchers alone who want to contribute.

We all recognise that the livelihoods and futures of steel communities across our country will be directly affected by the decisions taken in Westminster this week, but it is the motion before us tonight that creates the possibility that those decisions will be the right ones. That is a heavy responsibility on our shoulders and it is therefore incumbent on us all to treat this debate with the seriousness that it deserves. That is why it is a source of regret that the one person whose decisions will matter above all in Westminster this week—the Secretary of State for International Trade—has chosen not to be here this evening.

After all, it is the Secretary of State’s Trade Remedies Authority—appointed, empowered and inspired by her—that has made the misguided recommendations that have led to this crisis. It is her powers in relation to those recommendations and her freedom to take other issues into account which are the subject of the motion before us today. Most fundamentally of all, it is her general approach to trade policy and her specific attitude towards the future of the steel industry in Britain that is crucial in determining the final decision that is taken on the retention of these safeguards.

If it were me standing in the Secretary of State’s position, I would want to be here this evening to listen to what the representatives of Britain’s steel communities have to say, particularly as some of those representatives are sitting on her own Back Benches. In her absence, I am going to use my opening remarks to look through each of the three issues I mentioned in turn—first, the role of the Trade Remedies Authority; secondly, the powers of the Secretary of State; and, thirdly, the decisions she now has to take—and try to develop a consensus in this House not just in support of this vital motion, but on how the Secretary of State should approach the crucial days ahead.

Let me start with the role of the Trade Remedies Authority and the reason for its flawed recommendations. There is nothing worse, in life or politics, than people being wise after the event, but in respect of the Trade Remedies Authority it is very much a case of predictions coming to pass. Four years ago, my hon. Friends the Members for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) and for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) warned the Government consistently during the first attempted passage of the Trade Bill that their vision for the new TRA was misguided. Exactly 13 months ago, when the Trade Bill returned for a second time, I stood at this Dispatch Box and followed their previous lead, describing the TRA as

“a vital body with a vital task”

but one that was not representative of the business and workers that it was being set up to defend. “No wonder”, I said 13 months ago,

“there are such concerns and suspicions that the Government’s true agenda for the TRA is not to defend Britain against underpriced imports, but somehow to balance the damage they do to domestic producers against the perceived benefits for domestic consumers.”

I said back then:

“That is not the job of the trade remedies authority.”—[Official Report, 20 May 2020; Vol. 676, c. 616.]

I stand by that statement, even more today now that we have seen this new body in action. If we were in any doubt about the misguided sense of mission that is driving the TRA, we had all the confirmation that we needed last week from the new chair and the new chief executive, who were personally selected by the Secretary of State from the senior ranks of the Department for International Trade. In their joint interview with the Financial Times, they explained that, under their leadership, the TRA would always seek to set the lowest safeguards possible, deliberately lower than any EU equivalent, and that this approach would be quite distinct from countries

“which impose swingeing tariffs to protect particular industries.”

They boasted that the TRA had already scrapped more than 50 of the safeguard tariffs carried over from the European Union, and that they intended to consider only around four cases per year where new safeguards might be required, which is a quarter of the amount being pursued each year by Brussels. They concluded that the TRA was

“suited to a buccaneering global Britain”

that would favour free trade over the protection of domestic industries. If anyone were wondering how the TRA can possibly have come to the conclusions that it has when it comes to maintaining Britain’s steel safeguards, the answer is that the men in charge are simply doing what they were appointed to do by the Secretary of State.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for taking my intervention and for the point that she is making; I agree fully with what she is saying. Does she agree that it is the complete opposite of taking back control that the Secretary of State cannot even amend the recommendations of this authority and that, basically, it is faceless bureaucrats who are determining Government policy?

[Emily Thornberry]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right, and I will be developing that point in a few minutes.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Emily Thornberry]

I will take one more intervention, especially from the hon. Gentleman whose constituents will want to know what he has to say this evening.

[Jacob Young]

I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way. Can she be clear in the point that she is making? Is she questioning the independence of the TRA and would she rather have a politically affiliated body determining trade policy?

[Emily Thornberry]

I would rather that we had a body that looked after the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and defended the steel industry.

Even so, let us not forget a fundamental flaw at the heart of the TRA’s recommendations: the failure to understand that the safeguards put in place by the EU were deliberately intended to provide comprehensive protection across the steel industry as a whole, recognising that if one product line is exposed to cut-price imports, the competitiveness of the whole industry is immediately undermined. The TRA has either not understood that basic concept or has deliberately chosen to ignore it. Either way, I defy anyone in this House tonight to argue that the TRA’s recommendations must be considered sacrosanct either because of its objectivity or because of its expertise. I am afraid that if Members read the Financial Times interview or studied its conclusions on steel safeguards, it is clear that the TRA has been found sorely lacking on both fronts, as many of us predicted that it would

That brings me to the second of the three major issues before us this evening. If the TRA’s recommendations are flawed, what can the Secretary of State do about it? As the House will be aware, as the legislation stands, it does not allow the Secretary of State to reject the TRA’s recommendations in order to retain the existing state safeguards. The motion before us proposes emergency legislation, allowing the Secretary of State to do exactly that. The reason that we would argue that such an unusual move is a necessity is not just because of the urgent need to stop those steel safeguards expiring at the end of the month, but because this review process has exposed three fundamental problems in the remit of the TRA’s investigation that cannot have been intended by Parliament.

First, it makes no sense whatsoever for the TRA to look at the UK’s safeguards on steel in isolation from what the rest of the world is doing with theirs and from what is happening in global steel markets. Let us consider the position that we are at present: eight of the world’s 10 largest steel markets have safeguards currently in place, with the US and the EU recently confirming that they are certainly keeping theirs. At the same time, China is heading towards the 1 billion tonne mark for annual production and still has more than 300 million tonnes in spare capacity. In that context, it would be utter madness to remove half our current safeguards and expose our country to a flood of cheap imports from China and elsewhere at exactly the time that those suppliers are desperately hunting for an unprotected market. Yet the TRA has not given any consideration to the international context, because it is apparently not in its remit to do so.

Secondly, it makes no sense whatsoever for the TRA to conduct an economic test on the need for these safeguards that does not take into account the impact of removing them on the 34,000 well-paid, good-quality skilled jobs for steelmakers in Wales, Yorkshire and Humberside, the midlands, the north-east and elsewhere, and the 42,000 more in supply chain roles. These are exactly the kinds of jobs in exactly the kind of communities that the Government keep telling us are essential to level up our country, and yet the direct threat to those jobs and communities that dropping our safeguards would create is not one of the factors considered by the TRA, because it is apparently not in its remit to do so.

Thirdly, it makes no sense whatsoever for the TRA to make recommendations affecting the British steel industry without considering the knock-on implications for our defence procurement programmes, for the construction of critical national infrastructure, and for the delivery of our net zero emission targets. All those major considerations for the Government will be dramatically altered depending on whether we are producing the majority of our steel we need here in Britain or importing it from abroad. Yet the potential impacts of its recommendations on those different areas were not among the factors considered by the TRA, because apparently it was not in its remit to do so.

That leaves us with a fundamental dilemma: either the TRA’s remit needs to change so that it can consider the global context for its recommendations and take into account their impact on our jobs, communities and regions, our national defence, our civil infrastructure and our climate change objectives, or, alternatively, the Secretary of State’s powers need to change to allow her to weigh up all those factors against the TRA’s analysis and make a decision, with Parliament’s approval, based on our overall national interest, on what is best for Britain. Which of those two options would be better is a discussion for another day, but one thing that we should be certain of now is that the Government cannot proceed with a decision on steel safeguards on the basis of recommendations by the TRA that have not even taken into account some of the most crucial factors at the heart of that decision. On that basis alone, I hope that Members in all parts of this House will agree on the need for emergency legislation to allow the Secretary of State to reject the TRA’s recommendations, extend the current safeguards beyond 30 June, and allow time for discussion about the right course of action for the future.

I said at the outset that the third and most fundamental issue affecting our debate today is the approach of the Secretary of State herself to the future of the British steel industry and whether she will accept our invitation to move emergency legislation, if that is how we vote tonight. If you had asked me that question seven years ago, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would have said yes. Back then, you may remember, the Secretary of State burst on to the political scene with an impassioned cry for us to buy more pears, apples and cheese grown and made here in Britain, and scathing criticism of those who thought that our food production could be outsourced overseas instead. But now she reserves her fury for the British farming industry and all of us in this House who oppose the deal that she has signed to flood our market and undercut our farmers with cheap and cruelly produced Australian meat.

In the past seven years, the Secretary of State has seemingly been fully captured by the free trade dogma that insists on the right of the consumer to choose the cheapest product available from anywhere in the world and rails against any interference with that right, whether it is the maintenance of tariff safeguards to protect domestic producers, concerns about slave labour and human rights abuses, or the cruelty to animals and carbon admissions that are so often the hidden cost of cheap imports. Because the Secretary of State will have no truck with such concerns, she has become the hero of the right-wing free trade think-tanks—the ones that hanker after the supposed improvements in productivity and efficiency if only our NHS was forced to compete, the ones that openly talk about the benefits of destroying the British farming industry so as to end subsidies for wildlife conservation and free up more land for developers, and the ones that inevitably are equally scathing about Government support for the British steel industry or the retention of our safeguard tariffs.

Listen to Mark Littlewood, director general of the Institute of Economic Affairs, who said:

“It’s unsustainable for the government to prop up a steel industry which is no longer competitive internationally.”

Listen to Matthew Kilcoyne, deputy director of the Adam Smith Institute, who described Government funding for the steel industry as

“throwing…cash into a burning furnace”.

These are not some obscure figures on the fringes of public life or some right-wing rent-a-quotes trying to get their names into The Telegraph. These are hand-picked members of the Secretary of State’s own strategic trade advisory group—her personal body of external advisers, whose sole representative from manufacturing industry is not from British Steel or Make UK, but is the director of JCB construction, and guess what? He is the biggest Tory party donor.

These are the voices the Secretary of State is listening to when it comes to safeguarding tariffs, when it comes to protecting British farming and when it comes to protecting British Steel. So no wonder the two acolytes she appointed to run the Trade Remedies Authority think their job is to promote free trade rather than to defend domestic producers, and have recommended this wrong-headed decision on steel as a result, and no wonder the Secretary of State, who said last month that she would do “whatever is necessary” to protect the UK steel industry, will not even attend this debate to discuss how she might go about doing that. If she refuses to act to protect our safeguard tariffs, it will be an unconscionable betrayal of Britain’s steel communities—one that they will never forget and one they will never forgive. What will make it all the worse is that she, her think-tank allies and the Trade Remedies Authority are just plain wrong when it comes to the British steel industry. Opposition Members see a bright future for our steel communities, a green future and a future that creates wealth for our country and well-paid, good-quality jobs in our regions if we have the will to make that future happen.

[Jacob Young]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Emily Thornberry]

No, I will not give way at this stage. I am going to finish the speech.

If we do wish to do so in Britain, we can wean ourselves entirely away from the cheap imported steel that causes 50% extra carbon emissions, and instead have a British steel industry that leads the world in the development of hydrogen steel technology and decarbonised steel production, and by doing so leads our country to the achievement of net zero. If we choose to do so in Britain, we can put home-produced steel at the heart of every defence contract and infrastructure project from warships to wind farms, and use British steel to build our way back to full economic recovery. If we choose to do so in Britain, we can make the jobs in our steel industry the foundation for creating thousands more well-paid, good-quality, skilled jobs in other communities that need them, as we apply our skills and strengths in steelmaking to the new opportunities created by the green industrial revolution.

However, to make all those things happen, there is something the Government must contribute. It is just as precious as public funding, but so much easier to provide, and that is a simple injection of certainty and stability. When our steel companies go into the world and seek investment in their future, they must be able to say with total confidence that the British Government have their back, will support them when necessary and will always do whatever it takes to defend them against unfair trade or a surge in cheap imports. That type of certainty and confidence is the minimum that our steel industry has the right to expect from their Government, and if it cannot get that from them, Parliament must seek to provide it instead.



That is the fundamental choice before us all tonight, but especially Conservative Members who may be debating with their conscience which way to vote. Will they side with the communities of Scunthorpe, Cardiff and Sheffield, who see a bright future for their industry, or will they side with the fanatics from the right-wing think tanks who see no future at all? Will they provide our steel industry with the safeguards that it needs to build for the future with confidence, or will they leave it to sink or swim in a flood of cheap imports from China?

I have no idea where the Secretary of State stands on that choice, because she has chosen not even to be here this evening, and has so far refused to take the emergency action that the Opposition have instead been forced to propose on her behalf. But if this House decides overwhelmingly to back the Opposition motion tonight and require the Secretary of State to maintain the safeguards, I believe that by sheer weight of pressure we can force her hand to do so, inject confidence back into our steel industry and forge a path for our steel communities to the brighter future that awaits them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jayawardena]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the lack of attention to detail on the Labour Benches. The approach we have taken forward is in line not only with WTO rules but with our domestic legislation.

I will tell you the truth, Madam Deputy Speaker: the TRA has recommended to the Secretary of State that nine product categories of the existing safeguard measure be removed. It judged that seven of them did not meet the requirement to show a significant increase in imports. Another failed to show any risk of serious injury or injury recurring, and the other did not pass the economic interest test, with industry asking for it to be removed, as the shadow Secretary of State discovered this morning, courtesy of the “Today” programme on BBC Radio 4. The Labour party seems intent on throwing the baby out with the bath water. The TRA recommended retaining the safeguard on 10 other product categories, and that would be exposed to legal challenge if we were arbitrarily to take the sort of decision that the Labour party advocates. Does the Labour party want to leave the WTO and adopt an isolationist approach in the world? I don’t, and I won’t.

[Emily Thornberry]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Jayawardena]

No.

In truth there is a choice between working hard, getting into the detail and defending British interests, which we are doing and will continue to do, and playing politics, as Labour Members and those on the left of our politics seem intent on doing.

It is worth remembering that the TRA was set up in 2018 under the last Government and places strict limits on the powers of the Secretary of State. Of course, the Labour party knows this, because Labour tried to curtail the Secretary of State’s powers even further. The hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd), as shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, spoke against

“the public interest...being used as a mechanism to widen the powers of the Secretary of State.”––[Official Report, Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Public Bill Committee, 25 January 2018; c. 103.]

During the passage of the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018, Labour stood against the Secretary of State being able to reject a recommendation of the TRA, but today Labour is asking us to legislate to do just that: to reject the TRA’s recommendation.

Under the legislation from the last Parliament—that dead Parliament—the Secretary of State does not have the power to change the TRA’s recommendation—

[Emily Thornberry]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Jayawardena]

No, the right hon. Lady has had her say.

The Secretary of State does not have the power under the law to change the TRA’s recommendation on the safeguard measure to retain measures against its advice. She possesses only a downward ratchet, which means either accepting the TRA’s recommendation in its entirety or rejecting it and seeing every part of the safeguard measure expire on 30 June. I can assure the House that the Secretary of State takes these responsibilities very seriously and will reach a decision on the recommendation and publish it before the measure is due to expire.

[Emily Thornberry]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Jayawardena]

I will.

[Emily Thornberry]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Is he in favour of these recommendations? Does he think they are a good idea or not?

[Mr Jayawardena]

I will come to the Secretary of State’s position and the process that will follow in a moment, but I must be clear—

[Emily Thornberry]

That is not what I asked.

[Mr Jayawardena]

The right hon. Lady did not answer the earlier question from my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) either.

Extending the deadline for a decision is not an option, and extension of the safeguard on product categories would expose Britain to challenge from other member countries of the WTO for non-compliance with the agreement on safeguards, which, as I warned a moment ago, may lead to a WTO decision requiring the United Kingdom to revoke the measure in its entirety.

I thought the Labour party understood these principles. After all, the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), the then shadow Trade Minister, criticised President Trump for imposing

“protectionist tariffs that the rest of the world believes are illegal under WTO rules.”—[Official Report, 4 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 39.]

Maybe that was Labour’s policy then and this is its policy now. Perhaps the Opposition were against the policies of President Trump then and support the policies of President Trump today. Either way, they do not have the British national interest at heart. The Labour party is showing once again that it is a protest party, lacking in competence and understanding of the issues. Labour may have changed its leader, but it poses a clear risk to our country.

Turning to our friends in Europe and America, we continue to have discussions with the steel sector to understand its concerns about the outcome of the EU’s steel safeguard review. We recognise the harm caused by the unfair and unjustified US tariffs levied on our steel industry under section 232. It is fake news to suggest that our steel industry threatens the viability of American steel producers or that it contributes to global excess capacity in the market. Trade barriers such as these are what bring the rules-based international trading system to its knees, yet that is the sort of approach that the Labour party is advocating tonight. We remain disappointed at the continued imposition of such tariffs and are pressing our American counterparts for an urgent and permanent resolution. After working to date to de-escalate the Boeing-Airbus dispute by agreeing to suspend retaliatory tariffs for five years, we now want to shift their attention to the unjustified section 232 tariffs and work with them to agree a fair, permanent resolution for British industry.

We will continue to deliver for the British people, and that is why we are reviewing the Secretary of State’s powers already, exploring and consulting on how we might legitimately be able to strengthen them. That is why we are working closely with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to ensure that trade remedies measures are up to date in the current context, not least following the pandemic. In the event of there being increased imports of unfairly subsidised products into the United Kingdom, we will not hesitate to take action to defend the industry using anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariffs. That shows our resolve to improve our domestic toolkit and to use the tools at our disposal to tackle market-distorting practices, but rushing through changes to legislation, posing a risk to industry in the process, as Labour would have us do, is not the answer.

[Emily Thornberry]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Jayawardena]

No. We should all greatly value Britain’s reputation as a champion of global free and fair trade. We should not want to take actions that risk being found to be non-compliant at the WTO. The Secretary of State takes her responsibilities very seriously in considering the recommendation from the TRA, but the truth is that the best way forward, the right way forward, for our steel producers lies in free and fair trade. Together, we can make sure that this vital British industry enjoys a sustainable long-term future. The British people should be in no doubt: this people’s Government are backing our steel manufacturers; this people’s Government are backing the tens of thousands of jobs in the industry; and this people’s Government will continue to do so.

Free Trade Agreement Negotiations: Australia

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement and for publishing the outline agreement at quarter to 1 last night—nothing screams confidence in the deal you have negotiated like slipping it on to your website after midnight. I will not address every element of the deal she has highlighted today. On some, we will have to reserve judgment until we have seen the full treaty text and the economic impact assessment. After all, this was the Secretary of State who agreed a brand new Japan deal that turned out, according to her own figures, to deliver lower benefits for Britain than the one we already had.

However, the one area of this deal on which we can reach a verdict now is the terms agreed on agriculture. In doing so, I am not going to hold the Secretary of State to some impossible ideal; I am simply going to hold her to the past commitments she has made to protect our standards and our farming industry. Let us start with standards. She said last October that she would not sign a trade deal that would allow British farmers to be undercut by cheap imports produced using practices that are allowed in other countries but banned in the UK. She called that an important principle, so let me give her just 10 examples of such practices in Australia: allowing slurry to pollute rivers; using growth-promoting antibiotics; housing hens in barren cages; trimming their beaks with hot blades; mulesing young lambs; keeping pregnant pigs in sow stalls; branding cattle with hot irons; dehorning and spaying them without pain relief; and routinely transporting livestock for 48 hours; and doing that without their having rest, food or water. All those practices are in common use in Australia, but banned in Britain. Yet, under the deal she has signed, the meat from farms that use those practices will come into our country tariff-free, undermining British standards, undercutting British farmers and breaking the promises made to the British people.

So much for protecting our standards, what about protecting our farming industry? The Secretary of State said last November:

“We have no intention of ever striking a deal that doesn’t benefit farmers”.

Yet the deal she has just signed will allow Australia’s farm corporations to export more than 60 times the amount of beef next year as they exported to Britain last year before they face a single penny in tariffs. It is the equivalent of immediate, unlimited tariff-free trade, which is why when the Secretary of State says that Australian farmers will be in the same position as EU farmers after 15 years, she is talking nonsense. They will be in exactly the same position from year one, but without the requirement to meet EU standards. No wonder Australia’s former negotiator at the World Trade Organisation said:

“I don’t think we’ve ever done as well as this. Getting rid of all tariffs and quotas forever is virtually an unprecedented result.”

Of course, he is right. When Japan and Korea negotiated their deals with Australia, they set tariff-free allowances in year one that allowed for a modest increase in the amount of beef Australia had exported to them in the previous year—7% for Korea and 10% for Japan. By comparison, the deal the Secretary of State has just signed allows Australia to increase its exports of beef by 6,000% without paying any tariffs. In the Government’s own scoping paper last July we have it in black and white. That increase in Australian exports will mean:

“A fall in output and employment”

in the UK’s agricultural sector. [Interruption.] The right hon. Lady says it is wrong, but I am just quoting her Department. So British farmers are to be left worse off as a result of her deal. This is another broken promise, with more to come when New Zealand, Canada, Brazil and America demand the same deal for their exports. Let me be absolutely clear. We want good trade deals with other countries. We want trade deals that will create jobs, support our industries, and strengthen our economy and our recovery. But, to be blunt about it, we want the kind of results from our trade deals that Australia has just achieved from us.

The Secretary of State told the newspapers in April that she would sit her inexperienced Australian counterpart in an uncomfortable chair and show him how to play at this level. I am afraid that this deal has exposed the Secretary of State as the one who is not up to the job. Britain needs and deserves better.

We need someone who will keep the promises they make to the public and to Parliament; someone who will promote British standards around the world, not allow them to be undermined; someone who will protect our farming and steel industries, not throw them to the wolves; someone who will get the results for their country that the Australian Trade Minister has delivered for his. The Secretary of State has shown that she is not that person, so there is only one question that matters today: will she guarantee to give Parliament not just a debate but a binding vote on the deal that she has agreed with Australia so that we can reject the terms she has agreed on farming and send someone else back to the table to get a better deal for our country?

[Elizabeth Truss]

Well, it is not a surprise that the right hon. Lady is relentlessly negative about the opportunities of the Australia deal and the trans-Pacific partnership. I am surprised that she is known as the shadow Secretary of State for International Trade; she should be known as the shadow Secretary of State against international trade, because there is not a single trade deal that she supports.

The right hon. Lady had nothing to say about the tariff-free access for all British goods—from cars to whisky—that we are going to secure under this agreement. She had nothing to say about the benefits for the under-35s of being able to live and work in Australia for three years with no strings attached. She had nothing to say about digital and services, even though the UK is the second largest services exporter in the world. Instead, she talked about agriculture, which is a new interest for her; we have not really heard her say much about it in the past.

Let me be clear: in year one, the cap on Australian beef exports to the UK will be 35,000 tonnes. We currently import 230,000 tonnes from the EU, so the cap is 15% of what we currently import from the EU. That is not the same access that the EU has; it is only 15% of the access. In fact, Australian farmers will only have the same access as the EU in 2036.

The right hon. Lady talks about animal welfare standards. Australia has been rated five out of five in international ratings on animal welfare standards. In many cases, those animal welfare standards are higher than they are in the EU, but not once did the right hon. Lady complain about the zero-tariff, zero-quota deal from the EU. Not once has she talked about animal welfare standards in the EU, apart from claiming that she likes Danish pork. The reality is that the right hon. Lady simply wants to stay in the EU. She does not want to look at future opportunities, she is not interested in where Britain can go in the future, and she is not interested in expanding Britain’s trade and delivering more jobs in this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Mr Hollinrake is not here, so we will go instead to the shadow Secretary of State.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Small and medium-sized farms across the country are rightly worried that this weekend’s agreement with Australia and the precedent it will set for future trade deals will not just undermine their business but destroy them. Last November, the Minister of State promised these farmers that the new trade and agriculture commission would mean that

“all the National Farmers Unions…will play an active role in assessing trade agreements going forward”—[Official Report, 17 November 2020; Vol. 684, c. 190.]—

and that as a consequence the farming industry’s interests would be “advanced and protected” by the TAC. Does he stand by those statements today?

[Greg Hands [V]]

I thank the right hon. Lady for those questions and I absolutely stand by that. We are involving NFUs from all four nations; I have met NFU Scotland’s Martin Kennedy twice in recent weeks. We are confident that the new trade and agriculture commission will be up and running in good time for it to conduct its statutory review of the Australia free trade agreement.

[Emily Thornberry]

I thank the Minister for that answer but the British farming industry knows the truth: the trade and agriculture commission it was promised to defend the interests of British farmers is not the one advertised by the Government this week, and my question to the Minister of State is simply this: why? What are the Government so scared of? If they are confident that their deal with Australia will benefit British farmers, not undermine them, why do they not have the courage of their convictions and establish the trade and agriculture commission on the basis that farmers were promised last November and let the voice of British farming deliver its verdict on the deal?

[Greg Hands]

We—myself, the Secretary of State and the whole of the Department for International Trade—listen very carefully, of course, to the voices of British farmers. The Secretary of State opened expressions of interest to become members of the trade and agriculture commission just this week. It is very important to understand that the role of the commission never has been to advise on negotiations; its role will be as debated and approved during the passage of the Trade Act 2021 and the Agriculture Act 2020, and we are looking forward to seeing its scrutiny later this year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

I assure the hon. Lady that the Trade and Agriculture Commission will be up and running to fully scrutinise the Australia trade deal. As set out in the Agriculture Act 2020, the TAC will look at whether FTAs

“are consistent with the maintenance of UK levels of statutory protection”

for

“animal or plant life or health…animal welfare, and…the environment.”

That is what Parliament supported in the Agriculture Act and the Trade Act 2021.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

On 6 October, the Secretary of State said:

“A lot of farmers would consider it unfair if practices that are banned in the UK because of animal welfare reasons are allowed elsewhere and those products are allowed to come in and undercut the standards that our farmers are asked to follow. I agree with that. I think that’s an important principle.”

That is what she said, so may I simply ask the Secretary of State whether she still stands by that principle in the context of her proposed deal with Australia?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I have always been clear that we will not allow our farmers, with their high animal welfare standards, to be undermined by unfair competition from elsewhere. The right hon. Lady will be well aware that Australian beef and lamb is already able to come into the United Kingdom under our current import rules.

[Emily Thornberry]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, but if I may, I will give her a specific example. The practice of mulesing is illegal in Britain but is in common use in Australia, not just in the wool industry, but in meat. Lambs at six weeks old are held down without pain relief and have the skin from their buttocks gouged out to prevent the scar tissue that grows back bearing wool. My simple question to her is this: under her proposed trade deal with Australia, will tariffs be reduced on meat produced on sheep farms that use the practice of mulesing?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are still in negotiations about the final stage of the deal, but I can assure the right hon. Lady that British farmers, with their high animal welfare standards, will not be undermined. I am sure she is aware of World Trade Organisation rules that prevent discrimination on the basis of production methods, and what she seems to be advocating is leaving the World Trade Organisation. By the way, she might be interested to know that foie gras is already banned in Australia.

Free Trade Agreements: Cameroon and Ghana

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

I will not give way.

This Government’s position is that beneficial growth and support for democratic principles are not mutually exclusive; in fact, the former is an important part of the latter. As we all know, more prosperous countries tend to be more secure and peaceful. For that reason, our focus remains on ensuring trade continuity, full ratification of the agreement and supporting trade-led growth in Cameroon.

I will turn now, if I may, to trade with Ghana. Our agreement with Ghana was signed on 2 March, restoring trading terms that had applied until the end of 2020. Our Department had long sought to conclude an agreement with Ghana. We proposed a deal on the same terms as Ghana had with the EU; I do not recall the hon. Member for Richmond Park being so passionately opposed to it when it was an EU deal, but perhaps that just comes with her party badge. Despite our consistent attempts, Ghana chose not to engage in talks on that basis for over a year. Between the end of the transition period and the agreement’s coming into effect in March, Ghana was instead eligible for preferential tariff rates under our generalised scheme of preferences. The UK made every endeavour to avoid that gap, but doing so was not entirely within our gift.

Nevertheless, I am proud to say that once meaningful engagement was established, both sides worked at an exceptional pace. We were able to minimise disruption to businesses by concluding negotiations in record time, and we look forward to working with Ghana fully to realise the potential of this agreement to provide vital jobs and livelihoods, as well as strengthening our long-standing ties.

Of course, one of the problems, Mr Deputy Speaker, is that if you base a lot of your argument on briefings provided by pressure groups, you can sometimes be misled. A bridging mechanism—

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Let’s have a proper debate.

[Graham Stuart]

The debate was obtained by the hon. Member for Richmond Park, and I do not think we need chuntering from the Opposition Front Bench, let alone so loud or rude.

[Emily Thornberry]

rose—

[Graham Stuart]

I have no intention of giving way. I would like the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury to be quiet.

[Emily Thornberry]

Yeah—exactly.

[Graham Stuart]

She can speak in the proper way. She should not speak otherwise.

Agricultural Exports from Australia: Tariffs

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, if she will make a statement on the United Kingdom’s proposed tariff offer to the Australian Government on their agricultural exports.

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

Our trade agreement with Australia is very likely to be the first from-scratch deal that we have struck outside the European Union. It is a major milestone for global Britain and a major prize secured for our newly independent trade policy. It is on course to slash tariffs on iconic UK exports, saving business potentially about £115 million a year.

The deal will be the most advanced that Australia has struck with any nation bar New Zealand, and will, we expect, be particularly forward-leaning in areas such as services, procurement and digital trade. It will be a great deal for the UK, and our farmers will continue to thrive. The agreement is a gateway into the massive CPTPP—comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership—free trade area in the Asia-Pacific, and opens doors for our farmers into some of the biggest economies of now and the future.

Our food is among the best in the world and incredibly competitive. We should be positive, not fearful, of the opportunities that exist for our agriculture and our farmers. We give the EU preferential trading terms, which I do not recall those on the Opposition Benches objecting to. We should be unafraid of giving our Australian cousins something similar, taking the chance to deepen trading ties with one of our closest friends and allies.

Australian meat is high quality and produced to high standards, and it arrives here in low volume. Meanwhile, Australia has some of the highest animal welfare standards in the world. The UK accounts for just 0.15% of Australian beef exports, and our analysis suggests that any increase in imports is more likely to displace food arriving from the EU. Any deal we strike will contain protections for our farmers, any liberalisation will be staged over time, and any agreement is likely to include safeguards to defend against import surges. Negotiators are now working to agree the outstanding elements with the aim of reaching agreement in principle in June.

This is not the end of the process. Later this year, Parliament will be given ample opportunity to scrutinise the agreement—we welcome scrutiny of the agreement—as well as any legislative changes that may be required before the agreement enters into force. Parliamentarians will also receive an independently scrutinised impact assessment. Mr Speaker, you will know that our scrutiny arrangements are among the most robust, and in line with other parliamentary democracies. Indeed, in some areas we go further still.

This will be a great deal for our United Kingdom. It will deliver big benefits for both countries and will help us build back better from the covid pandemic. I commend it to the House.

[Emily Thornberry]

Let me make it clear at the outset that we support a trade deal with Australia that is designed in British interests and will create jobs in our economy and increase our exports and growth. What we cannot support is a deal being rushed through in time for the G7 summit without proper debate or consultation, let alone the advance scrutiny that the Government promised by the Trade and Agriculture Commission. We cannot support a deal on agricultural tariffs that will cost jobs in our farming communities, undercut our food standards, increase our carbon offshoring and open the door to the destruction of our farming industry through further lopsided trade deals.

As an exercise in intellectual honesty, I would just ask all those on the Conservative Benches, in the right-wing think-tanks and on the newspaper comment pages to consider for one second how they would have reacted if it was Brussels that had negotiated this trade deal and sold out Britain’s farmers. They would have been rightly furious, and they should not be any less so when it is their own Government who are doing the selling out. However, what matters now is to try to improve the deal on the table before it is signed in Cornwall.

Assuming that it is now too late to remove the offer of zero tariffs, can I ask the Minister of State to pursue three other changes? First, will he put in place a safeguard trigger—which, as I am sure he knows, Australia was willing to accept in its deals with Japan, China and the United States—to protect British farmers against surges in cheap imports? Secondly, will he make it clear that zero tariffs will apply only to Australian products that meet the same standards that British farmers are required to meet on food safety, animal welfare and environmental protections? Thirdly, will he insert a review clause into the deal so that, if its impact is even more negative than was forecast by the Government last year, there is scope both to amend the deal and to learn from it in future trade deals? Those are the bare minimum changes that we need to mitigate the damage that this rushed and botched negotiation is inevitably going to do, so I hope that the Minister of State will agree to pursue all three of those priorities today.

[Greg Hands]

I thank the right hon. Lady again for tabling this question. Let me answer each and every one of her questions. First, she said that this had been rushed through. I was at the Department at its inception in the summer of 2016, and one of the very first things that was announced in 2017 was our target for our initial batch of free trade agreements, which included Australia. That was back in 2017 and repeated by the current Secretary of State in 2019. She talked about the Trade and Agriculture Commission. This will be up and running soon—[Interruption.] If she is that keen to see it up and running soon, she might have supported the passage of the Trade Bill, which became the Trade Act 2021 just before Easter; instead, we saw her repeated manoeuvres to delay and undercut the Bill at the time.

The right hon. Lady talked about any deal potentially undercutting our food standards. I was absolutely clear in the statement that there will be no compromise on our standards of animal welfare, food safety and the environment. That is our manifesto commitment, and it has often been repeated. She made a point about emissions and food miles. There is controversy in relation to meat production emissions, but no more than 5% of emissions are reckoned to come from the transportation across oceans of that product.

Let us look at Australia’s current trade patterns. Only 0.15% of Australian exports come to the UK. Australia sells 75% of its beef and 70% of its lamb into Asia at the moment. That is where the fast-growing markets are, and that is something that we in the UK are seeking to get access to ourselves through agreements such as the CPTPP and other trade agreements. There is a big opportunity here for UK agriculture.

The right hon. Lady asked about a safeguard trigger. As I said in my opening statement, safeguard triggers are typical of free trade agreements. This is still a free trade agreement that is subject to a live negotiation, but I would say that these things are typical of free trade agreements. She asked if we would have zero tariffs if the Australian produce met our standards. The Australian lamb and beef coming into the market today meets our standards. There will be no change as a result of the free trade agreement to our standards. Australian beef and lamb will continue to have to meet our import standards. If that is the only objection to zero tariffs, I take it that she would welcome such a situation if there were zero tariffs in the deal. She also asked about a review clause. Again, that is a typical feature of free trade agreements.

The right hon. Lady has to explain why she is seemingly so opposed to such a trade deal with Australia, a key Commonwealth, Five Eyes and like-minded trade ally of the United Kingdom. She did not complain about the zero-tariff, zero-quota access for EU beef and lamb, which had no staging on it at all. Why does she do so for Australia? I believe her real problem is that she still wants to remain in or rejoin the EU, like her neighbour the Leader of the Opposition, and cannot see the benefits of doing any trade deal with Australia. I commend the prospective deal to the House and invite more progressive voices on the Opposition Benches to join us in backing an FTA with our close friends and allies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Thursday 15th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Welsh farmers export £144 million of lamb and beef around the world, and the recent opening of the US market to beef and the Japanese market to lamb will boost the figures further. Last month, I visited Kepak, which is already shipping beef to the US from farms across Wales, including in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I am sure that the Secretary of State will want to join me in thanking Tim Smith and all the members of the Trade and Agriculture Commission for their final report published last month. Can I start by asking her when the Government intend to publish the core set of standards that the commission has called for, setting out the UK’s minimum requirements for tariff reductions when it comes to food safety, the environment and animal welfare?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with the right hon. Lady that Tim Smith and the team produced a fantastic report laying out the future for British agricultural trade, and I am also delighted that she welcomes the recommendations to promote the liberalisation of trade to influence innovation and productivity, and price and choice for consumers. We will be responding to the report in due course.

[Emily Thornberry]

I thank the Secretary of State for the answer, but it is vital that when this House comes to examine the upcoming trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand, we are able to judge them against that core set of standards. Can I ask her to make it clear today that there will be no proposed reduction in tariffs as a result of those two agreements for any agricultural products that do not meet Britain’s core standards?

[Elizabeth Truss]

Part of the Trade Bill was the establishment of the statutory Trade and Agriculture Commission. For every free trade agreement, it will produce a report on precisely the issues that the right hon. Lady outlines. I am very pleased that our partners in Australia and New Zealand are two countries with very high standards in animal welfare.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

The CPTPP is a very high-standards agreement, and the rules will have huge benefits for the UK. The reality is that UK products such as beef and lamb have been locked out of overseas markets for unfair reasons, so it is in our interests to sign up to a high-standards, good-rules agreement.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) said, there are at least 238 questions that the Secretary of State has to address on the subject of this agreement, and I look forward to receiving her answers soon, but today I want to ask her one simple one: can she guarantee that this Parliament will have as much time to scrutinise the proposed terms of accession to CPTPP before a vote on whether or not to approve them as the Australia, Canada and New Zealand Parliaments had before their respective votes?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her question—she clearly comes from a profession where she was paid by the number of questions she asked. I will be delighted to answer all those questions and more when we publish the public bundle, which will include the scoping assessment and our negotiation objectives. We will publish that at the time of launching our negotiations, and we will also have full parliamentary scrutiny, including by the statutory Trade and Agriculture Commission, in line with parliamentary systems across the world.