Trade Deals and Fair Trade

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. Do you agree with me—I think you do, from what you said earlier about dumping and the issues faced by developing countries—that the new deals must not erode the hard-fought preferences given to countries in the global south? There is a real danger that the new trade agreements that are brokered with other trading blocs will not be in those countries’ development interests. We need further public and Government scrutiny of those deals so we can be assured that that will not happen.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order. I recognise that the hon. Lady is a new Member, but if she says “you”, she is referring to me, and I do not have a view on this. It is an easy mistake to make.

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[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

Despite that indiscretion, it is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. You are certainly not the first person to make that mistake and I doubt you will be the last.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) on securing this important and timely debate, to which I will make a short contribution as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Fairtrade. I offer my sincere apologies that due to Select Committee commitments, I am unlikely to be present for the contributions of Front-Bench Members.

At our annual Fairtrade reception two weeks ago, Rosine, a cocoa producer from Côte d’Ivoire, shared information about what fair trade means for her and how it has transformed her life and the lives of her family and workers in a region where a typical farmer earns just 75p a day. Hon. Members who came to support the event—we had a record number of people through the door, including more than 100 MPs—will have understood the power of what she shared and the value of fair trade.

The debate is timely not only because of Fairtrade fortnight, but because we as a country are embarking on probably the single biggest shake-up of our trading arrangements in modern times. Without a strong sense of trade justice and fairness at the heart of that process, we may make quick wins here and there, but they will be to the detriment of some of the world’s most vulnerable people. As we transition away from our membership of the EU, we will be looking to negotiate with the larger, stronger economies first, and having a close eye on existing market access for developing countries must be a priority as we go through that process. With that in mind, I call on the Government to consider the impact of any proposed changes to our international development aspirations. Without the right scrutiny, our ambition to get bilateral trade deals done may have a detrimental impact on other smaller and more vulnerable exporters, undercutting and marginalising Fairtrade producers.

There could be some positive opportunities for Fairtrade within proposed changes to the tariff schedules and agreed continuity of preferences within trade deals after 2021, but without proper impact assessments that focus on potential unintended consequences, there could be significant impacts on market access for developing countries, which will affect Fairtrade products and producers. I welcome the news that the Government have committed to the roll-over preferences currently granted to developing and low-income countries by the EU, but I understand that several countries that currently have preferential access via the EU have not yet agreed continuity arrangements with the UK; they include Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya and Cameroon. I hope that the Government are in a position to update the House on that before too long.

My anxiety is that in our haste to sign off bilateral trade deals, we will approach the agreements as a means of securing quick wins for the UK and neglect to see them as the journey through which we can unlock the potential of farmers and producers across the developing world, satisfying our international development aspirations at the same time—resulting in a fair deal for all of us, if we get this right.

[Fleur Anderson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is hugely worrying that investor-state dispute settlements were not ruled out in the Government’s objectives for the US and EU trade agreements? Those mechanisms hugely undermine nations’ sovereignty and the hard-won rights and regulations she is discussing?

[Holly Lynch]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We want accountable methods of making sure that fairness runs through those trade deals, and we have to explore any and all opportunities to do that. Impact assessments are one of the ways of getting to that position, and the Government should take those issues into account, with an eye firmly on gender, inequality, pay and labour rights.

I pay tribute to some of the Fairtrade heroes we have in Halifax. When I first became a Member of Parliament, I was determined to make sure Halifax became a Fairtrade town; it was thanks to some wonderful people who had already been doing some great work promoting Fairtrade over a number of years that I was able to pull all that together to secure Fairtrade town status, which we have now had for three years.

Across Fairtrade fortnight we have had a number of activities. The brilliant fairandfunky have been in to deliver our annual Fairtrade schools conference at Halifax Minster. Just this weekend, the Albany Arcade at Halifax borough market hosted an exhibition of entries for our school poetry and poster competition. We had recipes and amazing samples of Fairtrade tiffin to try, made by Jane Simmons, and we had the absolute Fairtrade legends, Clive and Kay Holmes, who have been championing Fairtrade for years, holding stalls, making products available and sharing information. You could not meet two more wonderful people, entirely motivated by trade justice and fairness. I thank Ash Green primary school, Salterhebble, Warley Road and St Joseph’s for really getting behind the poster competition. The staff do an enormous amount of work in their schools promoting Fairtrade to their young people.

It would be remiss of me not to say that the APPG is always recruiting and always active; I encourage any and all MPs who are motivated by these issues to come along and get involved. As those trade deals come back to the UK Parliament for discussion, we will have to start doing some of the heavy lifting on scrutiny, in addition to the grassroots campaigning work that we have undertaken as the APPG up until now.

I apologise again that I will not be able to stay for the end of the debate.