Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We are now sitting in public and the proceedings are being broadcast. We will now hear oral evidence from Sophie Jones, director of public affairs at the British Phonographic Industry, appearing via Zoom. We have until 2.15 pm for this session. Please will the witness introduce herself for the record?

Sophie Jones: Good afternoon. My name is Sophie Jones. I am director of public affairs at the BPI, representing UK record labels.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q35 Thank you, Ms Jones, for joining us to give evidence. There was a sense that the Government were in a rush to get the Australia free trade agreement, and to a lesser extent the New Zealand free trade agreement, signed. If they had not been in such a rush, how might they have improved on the deals that they agreed?

Sophie Jones: I do not know how much. It did feel like something of a rush, but while some relatively modest progress was made, we welcome a number of strong improvements. I think you are referring particularly to Australia, but that was to New Zealand as well. Some of the things we were most interested to see, particularly around the Australian system of placing broadcast caps on the royalties that can be paid through to music rights holders, artists and musicians, is a commitment to make progress on those matters through ongoing dialogue, rather than firm commitments within the trade agreement itself. Perhaps that, as a significant focus and priority for us, with more time might have been able to make even more progress than the bilateral discussion approach that is being taken. While very welcome, that is perhaps an area that might have been given a firmer commitment.

The commitment is important because currently, in effect, the music industry provides a cross-subsidy to the broadcast sector, so that when musicians have their music played on broadcast channels in Australia, the amount of royalties paid is significantly capped at 1% of the gross revenue from the broadcaster. It is a significant policy area, and we hope to see progress made on that so that artists both in Australia and the UK can see the benefits of it flowing through.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q One of the issues that we hope to explore in Committee is the extent to which the commitments that have been made under the free trade agreement, in particular those under the procurement chapter of the Bill, can be translated into actual export orders. I am sure you will be aware of the comments of the former Exports Minister, who lamented that his own Department was not doing enough to help British exporters. It was the comments that were made in July. What else could the Department for International Trade do to support exporters in your industry, in particular those exporting to Australia and New Zealand?

Sophie Jones: The trade agreements themselves are significant in opening up markets to exporters, such as ourselves. British music is a phenomenal export success. In recorded music, we have seen our export revenues grow steadily year after year. That is partly due to the strength of the UK music sector and partly to do with the phenomenal talent we have here in this cultural capital, as well as the soft power of our music throughout the world. Outside of free trade agreements, we seek to—it is the example I just gave—bring countries more into line with the UK’s gold-standard IP framework and ensure that the value of the music we are creating is fairly recognised.

There are other parallel, accompanying schemes that we think could be more bold and ambitious. For example, we run something called the music export growth scheme with the Department for International Trade and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. That provides a really important foothold for British artists—independent artists in particular—when exporting into those territories.

We think there should be bigger, more ambitious support for that scheme, particularly with the rise of streaming, to enable access into markets such as those of Australia and New Zealand, which are really important touring markets but of course very far away, expensive and difficult to get to. The opportunities opened up by the rise of digital streaming mean that British artists have more access into those markets to generate export revenue and engage with fans, but smaller independent companies and artists need extra help to do that.

There is a huge growth opportunity there. We think that recorded music exports are set to double in the next two years, and by the end of this decade they will be at more than £1 billion a year. We need initiatives such as that and investment that helps bridge some of the gap in marketing, so that we can promote into those territories more than we ever have done before.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q I just want to push you on the extra help in particular for small and medium-sized businesses to exploit the opportunities that you were telling us are there in the Australia and New Zealand markets. Just exactly what sort of additional support to a small business would you think is necessary? We are obviously particularly interested in procurement, but I would be interested in your view.

Sophie Jones: If you are an SME or an independent artist, there is a cost of either going to tour in that territory or market yourself in that territory, particularly in a streaming-led environment where competition is so fierce and you are competing against the whole catalogue of music on streaming platforms. The music export growth scheme that we run provides grants that help support that kind of marketing, promotional and touring activity in a way that companies and artists at that scale in the market struggle to be able to meet. It is an investment injection to help bridge that gap.

The scheme is really successful. It generates £13 back for every £1 that is put in through the Government partnership. We see it very much as a valuable, even necessary, scheme to enable that export activity to happen for those who are at the earlier stages of their career development.

[The Chair]

If there are no further questions from Members, I will thank the witness for her evidence. We will now move on to the next panel. Thank you, Ms Jones.

Examination of Witnesses

Jonnie Hall, Donald MacKinnon, Gareth Parry and Nick von Westenholz gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chair]

Excellent. You confirm your experience and political agility.

Nick von Westenholz: I touched on it earlier: much as we might want to say, “We can amend the hell out of the primary legislation in order to amend the FTA,” that will not happen, and I also do not think that would be right. The FTA has been negotiated by the UK Government’s negotiators, and what they have come back with has been agreed with Australia and New Zealand. Trying to change the details of it through primary legislation would simply mean opening up the negotiations again; we would have to go back and renegotiate.

I might think that there are elements of the FTA that need renegotiating, but the way to do that is to have much more transparency and scrutiny throughout the negotiation process. As I said earlier, that was agreed in the exchange of letters between the International Agreements Committee and the Government. The Government committed to sharing their objectives before negotiations opened, to sharing updates throughout the negotiations with Parliament, and to providing for a debate on an amendable motion at the end of the process. If the Government do that, one could be pretty assured that the negotiations would end up with a result that is more palatable to a whole range of UK stakeholders. That did not happen in this case, and that is why there has been serious disquiet, particularly in the farming sector, about the deals.

Gareth Parry: Ever since the trade deals were mooted, we have been calling for a level playing field when our producers are in competition, or even greater competition, with producers in Australia and New Zealand. We could be here for hours discussing differences in production methods and standards between the countries, but my understanding is that there is no provision in the trade deals that would allow us to influence how those countries produce food and vice versa. From my understanding, that is why quotas and tariffs are used in trading across the world. If we are not allowed to influence how food is produced in another country, we use quotas and tariffs to create that level playing field. As Nick said, perhaps they cannot be incorporated to negotiate the current FTAs, but they definitely need to be considered when future trade deals come down the line.

Jonnie Hall: I thought the issues of concern were articulated very well in the first question. If they are the issues of concern, it strikes me as being a bit odd that they would be dealt with in legislation on Government procurement, rather than in the original process governing the trade agreements. I guess I am echoing what has been said by Nick and Gareth.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q The Trade and Agriculture Commission has come up in this conversation a number of times. I hope to explore its role, and possible future role in procurement, in line-by-line scrutiny next week. Could the witnesses describe what they see as the commission’s strength, and what could be done to make it stronger still as a force for scrutinising FTAs?

Nick von Westenholz: As I said, I sit on the Trade and Agriculture Commission, but maybe it would be right to say that I am making my comments as a representative of the NFU. Obviously, my role on the commission is as required and set out by the Secretary of State, who asks us to do what she would like us to do and says what she would like us to look at. We do that job as requested, essentially.

From the NFU’s perspective, I think the strength, or role, of the Trade and Agriculture Commission is as strong or as weak as the parliamentary scrutiny process around it. We look very closely, in considerable depth, at the standards aspects of trade deals, and we have produced two reports that go into some depth on that. The value of that is in providing parliamentarians with as much information as possible, so that they can assess the strengths and weaknesses of the FTA. Obviously, that goes alongside the broader assessments that Select Committees in both Houses make. We hope that, armed with that information, parliamentarians can then an informed decision as to whether they like an FTA or not. If parliamentarians, as I mentioned earlier, are not given the opportunity to vote on that, or even to debate it during the CRaG process, that clearly seriously undermines the effectiveness of any assessments, whether from the Trade and Agriculture Commission, Select Committees or, indeed, anything else. The scrutiny process and the role of Parliament in this is vital.

We still are using the CRaG process as the main process. As I say, I do not think that it has been used at all well in this situation, but that is what we have. That process was designed while we were a member of the EU, and really it did not envisage that free trade agreements like these would be subject to the process; it was for international treaties covering many other sorts of things. It seems to me pretty obvious that, having left the EU more than six years ago, we should design a parliamentary process, in statute, that actually deals with the fact that we are an independent trading nation doing these very important and often in-depth free trade agreements. The current situation is not designed to do that, and that is being shown up already in the Australian FTA.

Jonnie Hall: I completely endorse what Nick says. The Trade and Agriculture Commission was set up with the best intentions, and gave the agricultural industry and probably the whole agrifood sector a bit of encouragement that proper scrutiny would take place as trade deals were being negotiated. That was enhanced even further in November 2020, when the UK Government said that the commission would be placed on a full strategy footing, to ensure that the voices of farmers, growers, those in the supply chain and environmental, animal health and welfare groups could be heard while the UK Government were securing trade deals.

However, in March 2021, the terms of reference were published by the UK Government, and they stated that TAC would scrutinise free trade agreements once they were signed. That takes the whole point of the commission away from under its feet in many ways. It would work well, was effective and, I think, did perform a useful function—as Nick says, in informing parliamentarians, more than anything else. It has now been somewhat sterilised in some ways. We still need some sort of body to function in that way.

[The Chair]

The shadow Minister wants to come back.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q My last question is this. The Government have sold the benefits of the two FTAs as partly being about the huge, new, billion pounds-worth of Government procurement options that will be available. Do you think that that is one of the reasons why farming has been thrown under the bus? Was it that the opportunities in other sectors, such as Government procurement, were so good that they could afford to give so much away to the Australians? Or were there other reasons—inexperience, worries about Brexit and so on—why farming came off so badly?

Nick von Westenholz: I would not want to give a long answer; we all have opinions on what happened with the negotiations. I would just say that if you are doing a trade deal with a country such as Australia or New Zealand—countries that are, particularly when it comes to goods, already almost totally liberalised, and are very big and effective agricultural exporters—agriculture in the UK will probably be the main sector to come under pressure as a result. If you wanted to do a deal, and particularly if you wanted to do it quickly, and wanted it to be liberalising, as was the Government’s intention, I am not sure that you could do it in any way that did not at least have the potential to have a negative impact on UK agriculture, though none of us knows exactly what the outcome of the deals will be in the next few years.

Jonnie Hall: If you look at modern trade deals—deals in the last 20-plus years—agriculture has often been the sacrificial lamb in those trade negotiations, no pun intended, so the expression, “being thrown under the bus”, resonates quite clearly with the agrifood sector. In modern-day economies, it is in digital, tech, manufacturing and finance that great gains are to be made. We are the primary producers of a primary product; when it comes to overall value, agriculture and food products will be relegated to the tail end of a trade agreement between modern economies. If you ask other sectors of the economy, they will probably think that the agreements that have been signed are very much in their interests and create opportunity. We tend to see them in another way.

Gareth Parry: I wanted to answer the question on the Trade and Agricultural Commission. Forgive me, but I am not 100% sure of the full list of TAC members; however, we have long had the policy that representation on the commission needs to reflect the potential impacts on the agriculture and food sectors across the UK. I emphasise the need for good representation of all nations. I fully agree with what Nick and Jonnie said about the effectiveness of the TAC. As was said, it is no secret that the agricultural sectors in both the countries that we are talking about are huge. There will always be winners and losers in these types of liberalised trade deals, and unfortunately, as we can see from the impact assessments, agriculture is predicted to be one of the sectors that is a significant loser from these deals.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Q To help me understand better how our arrangements compare to those of others, can you say how much scrutiny you feel MPs had of procurement arrangements when we were in the EU, as compared to now, under our independent approach?

Nick von Westenholz: When we were a member of the EU, all trade agreements by the EU were scrutinised directly by Committees of Parliament. There was, through that process, a good degree of parliamentary scrutiny. At that time, Parliament retained a theoretical ability to either accept or reject all regulations stemming from the EU. A lot of people might argue that the power was exercised rarely, if ever, and that played greatly into the debate on our membership of the EU, but certainly formerly Parliament had a greater ability to oppose trade deals.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Professor Albert Sanchez-Graells is professor of economic law and co-director of the centre for global law and innovation at the University of Bristol law school. He is appearing via Zoom, and this session will end at 3. 25 pm. For the record, could you please introduce yourself, professor? Thank you, sir.

Professor Sanchez-Graells: Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity. I am Albert Sanchez-Graells and, as you said, I am a professor of economic law at the University of Bristol.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q Thank you very much for being willing to give evidence to us. In the evidence that you gave to the Select Committee on International Trade and the International Agreements Committee in the Lords, as well as some media commentary, I understand that you suggested that the procurement chapters of the Australia deal in particular deviate from the Government procurement agreement. Potentially, there are some aspects of deviation that will undermine the Government procurement arrangement and create legal uncertainty for businesses, and therefore potentially some regulatory chill that might discourage businesses from bidding for Government procurement contracts. Is that right? Could you explain your thinking in a bit more detail?

Professor Sanchez-Graells: Yes, that is correct. Thank you for the opportunity to expand on those ideas. Basically, the starting position is that both the UK and Australia, as well as New Zealand, are members of the World Trade Organisation plurilateral Agreement on Government Procurement. That means that free trade restrictions are already bound by a standard of rules with which they comply, and then they have bilateral agreements on market access. You would have expected that if the UK and Australia wanted to deepen that market access, or the UK and New Zealand wanted to do so, they would do it by adding to the annexes of the GPA, basically by keeping the rules as they are, but accepting that this or that market at national or sub-national level is also open to the tenders of the other jurisdiction. By the way, that is the approach that has been followed in the EU-UK trade and co-operation agreement, basically because that is a clean legal approach. We agree on the rules, we just negotiate on market access.

The difficulties with the chapters in the UK-Australia agreement in particular, and to some extent in the UK-New Zealand agreement, is that they have not done that. They have copied the rules of the GPA and then tweaked them. In those tweaks, there are problematic changes. I have identified two main areas of problem: one is the national treatment rules on access to markets, which applies in particular to suppliers in different jurisdictions, and the other is access to remedies. The access to remedies is the one that worries me because under the chapter with Australia, not the one with New Zealand, there is a clause that allows for the exclusion of legal remedies completely on the basis of public interest. That means that, for example, for very high-profile projects, or very high value, the courts might just set aside any claims for a suspension of the procedure or even for the compensation of damages to admit that there has been a loss to be excluded on the grounds that that is not in the national interest. It is a very open-ended clause. I think that this will make tenderers from Australia, in particular, think twice about tendering in the UK now, when they could basically be mistreated or even illegally excluded from tenders and then not have access to legal redress.

I think that that can be problematic. What is also problematic is that of course it plays both ways. If I am a UK small or medium-sized enterprise and I have to decide whether to invest my limited time and resources in bidding for a contract in Australia or bidding for a contract in, for example, the European Union, I know that, in the European Union, my interests are protected to GPA-plus standards, whereas under the FTA, in Australia, my interests are protected to GPA-minus standards, so I would probably refrain from bidding in Australia, which then brings a big question mark to the practical advantages of the enhanced market access that the Government have claimed the chapter will bring.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q That is extremely helpful, professor. I wonder, though, whether you could bring what you have said to life a little more with two examples. Let me give the example of High Speed 2. Obviously it is a big UK national infrastructure project, where clearly we would want competition but we would not want legal problems to delay that investment when it eventually kicked in. Presumably the Melbourne airport link, which the Australian Government authorities are currently tendering for, is also a significant infrastructure project for them and one in which British business might be interested. You have concerns about remedies. Could you describe them in the context of those two big infrastructure projects?

Professor Sanchez-Graells: Thank you; those are good examples to flesh this out. Let us take High Speed 2 as the first example. Let us imagine that for any bit of the construction of the lines or for the supply of the rolling stock, the UK conditions wanted to prioritise UK steel, as is Government policy at the moment. Imagine that an Australian construction company wanted to tender for the contracts, but the steel that it wanted to use for the rails was South Korean steel. In the current conditions, before the FTA enters into effect, the Australians have to be treated equally to a UK company even if they want to use South Korean steel, because South Korea is also a member of the GPA.

What would happen under the FTA is that, because of the specific wording in the provision—I do not want to bore you with the detail—there would be an option for the UK buyer to take a narrow understanding and say, “You are not offering Australian steel and you are not offering British steel, so I no longer have to treat you equally to UK bidders. Therefore I exclude this construction company from the tender.” The construction company probably would want to challenge that, especially because it spent money tendering but also because it is potentially a profitable contract, so it goes to the High Court. Let us say that the High Court dismisses the claim, on the basis that HS2 is already so delayed and so over budget that there is no public interest in looking at this issue. Then the Australian company is left with maybe one final resort option, which is to try to bring an investment protection claim on the basis of that denial. But certainly it seems strange that if the FTA had not entered into effect, the Australian company would have had access—maybe not to suspending the project if the interest is high, but certainly to claim the damages for that unfair treatment of its tender.

The same thing would happen the other way. Let us imagine that an innovative British company that wants to sell low emissions rolling stock for that metro link in Melbourne airport goes and tenders in Australia. It is excluded for any number of reasons and it wants to challenge the decision. It could also be barred from access to remedies in Australia, which means that the UK tenderer has lost its time and probably made a loss on the project. That would generate a very big disincentive for anybody to try to tender in future projects. But also, again, there would be a risk of maybe trying to raise this issue as an investment protection issue. That would basically, in simple terms, open up a trade war between the UK and Australia.

To me, it is counterintuitive that when we are trying to deepen our trade liberalisation on a bilateral basis, we are creating problems that do not exist under the current multilateral basis, where these issues are not allowed.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q To pursue this a bit further, as I understand it from what you are saying, the GPA includes every country that is still in the European Union—the French, the Italians and so on—and if their companies were treated unfairly while bidding for contracts in Australia, they would have better access to remedies than a British company treated in a similarly unfair way. Is that correct?

Professor Sanchez-Graells: Yes, that is absolutely correct. In the tender process that we are imagining for the Melbourne airport rail link, if a French company, a British company and an Australian company was tendering, and the Australian company was preferred, the French would have access to remedies that could not be excluded, at least in terms of claiming for compensation for lost profits, or at the very least for the cost of having bid, but the UK tender could be barred from those remedies. Again, that does not seem like a post-Brexit improvement of the position of UK businesses under these stand-alone free trade agreements.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q As I understand it, these agreements are going to be superseded by, on the one hand, the Procurement Bill coming down the line and, on the other hand, the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, assuming accession takes place. Will these problems be resolved by the CPTPP, so we do not need particularly to worry about this Bill? Or do they just continue?

Professor Sanchez-Graells: I would make two points on that. First, even if the CPTPP were to resolve these problems, which it will not—I will explain why later—there would always be the problem of how long it takes between these FTAs entering into force and CPTPP basically overturning them. The reason why CPTPP would leave these FTAs without effect is that both Australia and New Zealand are members of CPTPP, and therefore the later international treaty modifies the previous ones. For any tender that started between the entering into force of these FTAs and the entering into force of the UK’s membership of the CPTPP, the rules of these FTAs would apply. So this is not an issue that might be on the books and is then fixed by CPTPP; it could run for years even if CPTPP enters into force.

The second and more important point is that CPTPP is very close to the Australian procurement chapter, which is probably where its inspiration was drawn from. So it would keep the same problems under the Australian chapter and make the problems under the New Zealand chapter worse, because on remedies the New Zealand chapter is aligned with the GPA, but once CPTPP entered into force all single relationships with New Zealand would have the problematic clause that would allow the barring of access to remedies. So CPTPP would not make it better, and in any case we would have to live with the consequences of these FTAs for the period between the entering into force of them both.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q What you appear to have just said is that there are significant differences between the procurement chapter under the Australian FTA and the one under the New Zealand FTA. Is your sense that the Government realised they had made a mistake in terms of remedies under the Australian FTA and therefore improved things under the New Zealand FTA? Or was it just down to good luck that we do not have the same problems in the New Zealand FTA as we have in the Australian FTA?

Professor Sanchez-Graells: Of course, I am not privy to the negotiations, but my impression is that these chapters very much started from the position of the trading partner. I do not think the reason why the New Zealand chapter is different from the Australian chapter has to do with the UK Government learning from mistakes; I think it has to do with different starting positions among the New Zealand negotiators and the Australian negotiators. Australia has the same sort of clause in most of its trade deals, and it also pushed for it under the CPTPP. You may call it luck, but I think we may just call it an effect of the rush in which the deals were negotiated. Effectively, they have made the UK a rule taker, because they have accepted the proposals of the counterparty just to progress negotiations. That is my observation.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q Okay. You touched on the issue of investment protection. I am not experienced enough in procurement to be able to reprise exactly the line you took, but you mentioned the potential scope for action in terms of investment protection. That brings into play the whole issue around investor-state dispute settlements, as I understand it. Could you confirm that, and explain how that might be a problem?

Professor Sanchez-Graells: This would be an issue that would depend on the terms of the investment chapters in the FTAs, and, again, the investment chapters are different under the Australian and New Zealand deals. The New Zealand deal excludes procurement from all of those outstanding obligations of the investment chapters. That would not be a problem in that FTA, but in the Australian investment chapter there is an obligation to provide fair treatments, which includes common customary law on access to justice.

The point I am trying to make without being too complicated is that the Australian company that had bid for HS2 and had been thrown out on the basis that it wanted to use South Korean steel goes to the High Court and sees its action thrown out on the basis of public interest. It could then say, “Okay, I was trying to acquire an investment in the UK. The UK has to give me fair treatment in the process of trying to gain this investment. They have denied me access to remedies. Also, they have denied access to remedies on grounds that they cannot play with other companies that are in a very similar position to me, including other companies that come from GPA countries.” They could make the case of having been discriminated against in not being given access to remedies and make that an investment dispute.

The difficulty in this context is that under the Australian chapter, to the best of my knowledge, and I am not an investment expert, there is no possibility for the Australian company to sue the UK Government. They have to raise the issue with the Australian Government so that they could raise it as a dispute under the agreement with the UK. That is why I think it opens up the problem of potential trade wars. It is not an issue even of relatively secretive arbitrators determining whether the UK has to compensate the Australian company, but it immediately becomes a potentially very high-profile trade issue between the two countries. It is very difficult in that case to foresee how it will end up being resolved. There will be a panel which will also work relatively similarly to an investment arbitration tribunal. If what the panel decides is not implemented, then we can just go to countervailing measures and other types of sanctions. The prospects are not looking good, unless the UK Government at some point decides to settle the dispute to avoid those problems.

There is a long story, starting with the Brexit process, of very expensive settlements for procurement mishaps, for example, with the ferry contracts or with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. Potentially, these could be very expensive claims to settle and the terms of those settlements are never very clearly controlled, and the process whereby those settlements are achieved is also not necessarily well scrutinised in time. That opens up all sorts of other issues with how, instead of being dealt with in the courts, the misbehaviour of a procuring entity in the UK ends up becoming a political and potentially very expensive issue.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q The last question I wanted to ask was about the impact assessment, where the Government claimed that there would be an extra £10 billion of procurement opportunities for British business. Given what you have said about the legal uncertainties, do you think that £10 billion is a realistic figure or overstated?

Professor Sanchez-Graells: I always said from the beginning that it is difficult to know how realistic the impact assessment is because the details have not been made public, so we would need to take the Government’s word at face value. It is difficult to see that some of the touted advantages are going to be exploited, because we are talking about high-profile, high-value projects. We know that usually there is always a risk of protectionism, especially in the current circumstances. If I were advising a big company, I would flag the risk that going to Australia means we are basically putting all of our investment at risk because we may not be able to recoup it. I wonder whether that was taken into account in the impact assessment, but I would think not. That £10 billion probably has to be adjusted downwards for that uncertainty, which will make some companies not take advantage of the opportunities.

The other issue that makes me wonder how accurate the impact assessment was relates to the claims that the Government made in some of the documents that tried to promote the advantages of the FTA. For example, they said that there is now a massive improvement in access to financial services contracts because some authorities in Australia are now covered. But those authorities are already covered under GPA, just at the higher value threshold. There is quite a lot of marginal improvement on market access. I would have wanted to see some evidence that UK companies would have been interested in those contracts but were not bidding because they did not have a legal right to bid, which I have not seen anywhere. I think that the £10 billion is a quite theoretical, best-case scenario. I advise caution in assessing that figure.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q Very lastly, as I understand it the £10 billion figure is an Australian estimate anyway, albeit that the UK Government claim that they have checked it out and, remarkably, think it is accurate. Is that fair?

Professor Sanchez-Graells: That is correct; I think that is what the UK impact assessment claims. When the International Agreements Committee raised this issue in the report, the Government’s response did not provide any further details; they simply said that the figure was properly checked. It may be the cynic in me, but when those figures are not put out for public scrutiny, perhaps we naively accepted the benefit suggested by the counterparty.

[The Chair]

If there are no further questions, I thank the witness for his evidence. We will move on to the next panel.

Professor Sanchez-Graells: Thank you for your time.

Examination of Witness

Michael Gasiorek gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We will now hear evidence from our next witness, Rosa Crawford, policy officer at the TUC, who is appearing via Zoom. Rosa, thank you for being available a little early. We have until five minutes past 4 for this session. May I ask you to introduce yourself, for the record?

Rosa Crawford: I am Rosa Crawford, policy officer lead on trade and Brexit at the Trades Union Congress, the national union centre that represents 48 affiliated unions, and over 5.5 million workers.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q Thank you, Ms Crawford, for being willing to give evidence to the Committee. We are focusing on the procurement chapters of the Bill. The Government have told us that they will offer businesses billions of pounds-worth of new opportunities, and that that is one of the many reasons why these are fantastic trade deals. Do you share that assessment, or could the deals have been improved in any way?

Rosa Crawford: We as trade unions believe that public procurement has the potential to create tens of thousands of jobs and many apprenticeships, but they need to be on the right terms; we have to make sure that these are decently paid jobs, on good, secure terms and conditions, that support a just transition and promote equality. What causes us concern about the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill is that it does not provide guarantees that those social objectives will be promoted through our public procurement procedures. In fact, there is potential to undermine them, particularly in the parts of the UK-Australia trade deal about public procurement, which this legislation would allow to be implemented.

Article 16.17 of the UK-Australia agreement says only that environmental, social and labour considerations “may” be taken into account by procuring entities, and only when those considerations are

“based on objectively verifiable criteria”.

That could open up scope for Australian companies, via their Government, to challenge social criteria in UK public procurement processes as being potentially unverifiable, because that is an undefined term. Multinational companies are eyeing up our procurement market—this is a big objective in trade deals—and will be looking for any means of challenging any social criteria that they regard as being a burden for business, such as a requirement to pay a living wage or to provide secure conditions. We are very worried about the language in the UK-Australia procurement provisions, which the Bill would allow to be implemented.

Let me connect that to the Procurement Bill going through Parliament. It does not give us the assurances that we need that social criteria will be promoted through its provisions, unlike the EU-derived procurement rules in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, which allowed the Government to refuse a tender on the grounds of its non-compliance with International Labour Organisation conventions, and required social value criteria to be taken into account in the most advantageous tender criteria. There is no such requirement in the Procurement Bill. That means that now, in UK procurement rules, there are no provisions to prevent public money from being given to suppliers who abuse fundamental workers’ rights. For us, that is going in completely the wrong direction.

In the EU-UK trade and co-operation agreement, we made commitments to promote fundamental International Labour Organisation standards, yet in the Procurement Bill and the UK-Australia agreement, we do not see them promoted. I will highlight two more concerns about the Procurement Bill. There is no requirement for high labour standards—

[The Chair]

Order. Forgive me, but we are not talking about the Procurement Bill. There is clearly some crossover, but if we can try to avoid the temptation to spend too much time on that crossover, I would be very grateful. Thank you.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q Thank you very much, Ms Crawford. You mentioned that the Procurement Bill could supplant the Trade (New Zealand and Australia) Bill. Legislation to implement accession to the CPTPP could do the same, if the Government have their way. Will the problems to which you have alluded be resolved if we join the CPTPP, or will they remain and be similar to those that exist in relation to the two FTAs?

Rosa Crawford: CPTPP could create an even more problematic situation for us. Members will know that the CPTPP contains the investor-state dispute settlement provisions, and unless the UK explicitly opts out of those provisions, we will be bound by them. That obviously means that foreign investors could sue the UK Government for any actions that are interpreted as being a burden on business. That could mean living wages and decent conditions. If we accede to the CPTPP, we could be allowing social criteria that we include in our public procurement provisions to be challenged by foreign investors from across the CPTPP countries, which obviously include some of the largest multinationals in the world.

It is extremely problematic to us that the UK is considering acceding to the CPTPP, and the TUC is opposed to that, as are the majority of trade unions in CPTPP countries. It should be said that the CPTPP takes a very broad, liberalising approach towards its service commitments, which means that a number of public services that are part-privatised could be locked into that privatisation through the CPTPP. The direction taken by the CPTPP, as well as by the UK-Australia trade agreement, which the Bill will implement, seems to us very problematic. It could undermine the expenditure of public money through public procurement—[Inaudible.]—and decent-quality public services.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q Some of our other witnesses, particularly those representing farming organisations, raised concerns about the scrutiny of trade deals. When we start line-by-line scrutiny next week, we certainly hope to explore the potential for greater scrutiny of the regulations that will flow from the Bill. What is the TUC’s position on scrutiny of the FTAs, and more generally?

Rosa Crawford: We have specific concerns about the lack of scrutiny provided for through the Bill, because paragraph 2 of schedule 2 states that any regulations made under clause 1 will be subject only to the negative procedure. Obviously, that will deny MPs the opportunity to scrutinise the procurement legislation introduced via the Bill, so it will not be possible for Members to challenge legislation that undermines social standards in procurement. We believe that clauses 1 and 2 should be subject to the affirmative procedure.

We also have more broad concerns about the lack of scrutiny of the UK-Australia trade deal specifically, as well as of all the trade deals that the Government have negotiated to date. For us, it is really important—[Inaudible.]—scrutiny, and scrutiny by trade unions. Otherwise, those deals will not deliver the best outcomes for workers, public services and all sectors of the economy. We really regret the process that was followed for the UK-Australia deal; Members were not provided with the opportunity to debate and vote on the agreement when it was brought before Parliament in June. The Bill is the only opportunity we have to debate the provisions of that deal, but the legislation is extremely narrowly drawn, and that is completely inadequate, in terms of the democratic process.

Trades unions have also been completely shut out of negotiations. We released a joint statement with our counterpart in Australia, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, at the start of the negotiations, setting out our positive agenda for what we thought a UK-Australia trade deal should look like. We said that trade unions should be in the room to provide expertise from across different sectors about the kind of protections that workers need, as well as the agricultural safety standards required. That impacts on workers’ conditions, and has to do with workers not being exposed to unsafe chemicals and unsafe procedures. We said that unless trade unions were in the room, we would not get the outcomes that workers needed.

The Government made a lot of positive noises about trade unions being included in the negotiations, and last September, the then International Trade Secretary, Liz Truss, said that the trade unions would be included in their trade advisory groups, which are consulted on the text of trade negotiations. We were not given those seats, and we were not consulted on the text of any of the UK-Australia trade deal as it was being negotiated. As a result, we have a trade deal that does not have adequate enforcement mechanisms and has very weak commitments on workers’ rights; there is only a reference to the International Labour Organisation declaration, not to the fundamental conventions. The terms of the deal refer to listing for services, which, in common with the CPTPP, will expose part-privatised services to being locked into that privatisation. The deal also has very problematic provisions on data liberalisation, which could mean that workers’ data is not properly protected. It could allow for that data protection to be challenged as a barrier to cross-border flows of data.

We have ended up with a deal that is completely inadequate and threatening, from a workers’ rights point of view, and from the public point of view, because we did not have engagement with that deal. As I said, that is also the case with the UK-New Zealand deal. In fact, we have not had input to any of the trade deals that the Government have negotiated to date. We really want a change of direction; we want trade unions consulted, as they are in other countries, such as the US; there, they are routinely consulted during trade negotiations. We want Parliament to be given a full say, and to have the ability to debate and vote on any trade deal brought before the House.

[The Chair]

Thank you. We have a little bit more time than we expected, but we also have quite a few questions to get through, as I am sure colleagues will be pleased to hear.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Esterson]

Q Can we go back, Rosa, to what you were saying about the impact on workers’ rights, and indeed environmental considerations? Can I confirm that your concern—or one of your concerns—about the Bill and the trade agreement behind it is that organisations have the ability to undercut rights and standards, in spite of what is elsewhere in domestic legislation?

Rosa Crawford: Yes, that is correct. With both the UK-Australia and the UK-New Zealand trade agreements, you have a weak labour chapter that makes reference only to the ILO declaration, rather than a requirement of fundamental international labour organisation standards respected by both parties. That is an issue in Australia and New Zealand because, despite the fact they both have progressive Governments, neither has ratified all the fundamental ILO conventions. New Zealand has not ratified the fundamental conventions on minimum age, health and safety, or freedom of association, and Australia has not ratified the fundamental conventions on minimum age, and health and safety.

Without that base of fundamental rights, there can be potential for a pressure on rights to lower here, as businesses take advantage of the market access they can get through the UK-Australia and UK-New Zealand trade agreements to places where they can potentially respect rights less. That could pressure rights to be lowered here. You do not have a labour chapter that has high standards, requirements and rights, and it has an ineffective enforcement mechanism that requires a proven effect on investment and trade, which we think will be difficult to meet.

There are similar provisions in the CPTPP labour chapter, despite the fact that CPTPP contains countries that are egregiously breaching labour rights—such as Vietnam, where trade unions are banned, as well as Brunei. We have not seen the CPTPP labour chapter being used at all. To us, those kinds of provisions are ineffective when they are included in a trade agreement, so it is concerning that the trade agreements we have with Australia and New Zealand do not have those effective provisions in place for labour standards. It sets a concerning standard for trade agreements we might sign with future partners, particularly as the Government are considering signing trade deals with places where labour rights are much worse, such as Gulf states, India and Israel.

The direction of travel is concerning in Australia and New Zealand. The inadequate protections around environmental standards also have an impact on workers’ rights; allowing produce with lower environmental safety standards to be imported into the UK potentially exposes workers here to more dangerous chemicals and other production methods that impact on workers’ safety and protection. We are concerned about the approach taken in both agreements.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q You said in your earlier evidence that the previous Secretary of State had promised to include the TUC in private discussions about free trade agreements, presumably including the Australia and New Zealand deals, but that that had not happened. Has the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress ever had an apology from the Department for International Trade for not including you and adhering to that promise?

Rosa Crawford: No. We have just had several pledges from successive Secretaries of State for International Trade. Liz Truss, when she was Secretary of State, had a meeting with our general secretary, Frances O’Grady, in which she assured her that unions would be included on these trade advisory groups. As I say, that was in September 2021.

Then our general secretary had a series of meetings with Liz Truss’s successor, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, including a meeting that also included the US trade ambassador Katherine Tai. She also made the pledge that trade unions would be included on these trade advisory groups. After that meeting, she appeared before the International Trade Committee in April this year, where she said that she hoped that trade unions would be included on the trade advisory groups as soon as possible, but we still have not seen any sign of that.

We hope that the new Secretary of State for International Trade will make good on that promise. We have written to Secretary Badenoch to request that the Government fulfil their pledge to include trade unions on the trade advisory groups, but we still have not seen anything. We are surprised and concerned that we have not seen progress in over a year since the Government pledged to include unions in the group. As I say, the outcomes are that we are getting trade agreements that are undermining workers’ rights, and new trade talks are being launched with really serious implications for workers’ rights with countries such as Israel, India and the Gulf states.

[Gareth Thomas]

I do not know whether it is in order, Chair, but to save time for the Committee next week, I wonder whether the Minister might want to reassure the TUC representative that the Secretary of State will grant access to the TUC in the future. It would save a bit of time next week if he were willing to give that pledge.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Thank you very much indeed. I call shadow Minister Gareth Thomas.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q Ministers have told us that this is a brilliant pair of deals, and the procurement chapters particularly so. Is there any way in which the deals could have been improved?

Miles Beale: I think there is a small difference between the two deals, in any event. From a wines and spirits point of view, there was—still is—a low tariff that the deals are getting rid of in both cases: a 5% tariff for exports and imports in either direction. Obviously, it is of benefit to consumers and businesses in both countries when those fall away. That is pretty straightforward—fairly simple.

I think we see an improvement on the Australian trade deal in the New Zealand one, because the New Zealand deal includes an annex and has a bit more of a dynamic element to it. The wine and spirits annex will allow us to have conversations over time, and improve on the deal that is already there. That was not available as an annex in the Australia free trade agreement.

There are a couple of things that we were expecting to be able to get out of the New Zealand deal that we are not yet able to get out of the Australian one, particularly around the wider variety of wines and spirits being available on both markets, and better traceability and brand protection, particularly for spirits. There is a distinction you can draw between the two deals, and you can see some progress being made; the New Zealand deal is slightly better than the Australian one.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q Do you think those differences are there because the Australia deal was a bit rushed, or because of inexperienced negotiators? Explain why you think the difference is there.

Miles Beale: Yes, in general terms that is true. There was an effort to get the Australia deal done quickly. You could say rushed; one person’s rushed is another person’s achievement in a shorter period of time. We were keen to support a deal that got over the line. There has been a bit more time for the New Zealand deal and it is probably slightly simpler to do, but the New Zealand deal also benefits from being the second one after a 42-year gap. I think that, certainly on the UK side, officials were in a slightly better position and knew a little bit more.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q The former Exports Minister said that there was not enough support for British exporters from the Department in which he had worked. That was back in July. Do you share the assessment that SMEs need more help to get goods to market in Australia and New Zealand?

Miles Beale: Yes, I think we would share that view, particularly for our exports. Let us take British gin as an example: we think it has significant cachet, and we particularly see smaller gin brands doing very well in the Australia and New Zealand markets. At the Wine and Spirit Trade Association we have organised our own trade missions for some of our small businesses. We normally take a group of them to markets that we think are likely to prove fruitful for them. We have not been able to do Australia and New Zealand, partly because they are geographically very far way and are smaller markets than some of the others we have chosen to go to, such as parts of the US and Japan.

We would like to see significantly more support for British SMEs that have export potential. It is one of the things we have talked to the Department for International Trade about quite a few times. Anything we can do to bring down the costs of entry into markets where we think the products would be successful would be a good idea. We know that other countries do that to a greater or lesser extent. One of the opportunities we see in the next few years is speeding up some of our SMEs getting into exporting wines.

[Gareth Thomas]

Q What response have you had from the Department for International Trade? Is it rushing to respond to help, or just pointing you to a website—or are there some promises that the Minister will come and have a chat and things will get better shortly?

Miles Beale: It is not quite as simple as that. The Department has certainly listened to what we have had to say. In practical terms, we get some support for our SMEs going into market from the posts—the embassies and high commissions in the markets that are out there, usually in capital or larger cities. What we have not had is any financial support. To be honest, that is the thing that would make the greatest difference for small businesses in particular.

Occasionally, there are large food and drink festivals that the DIT—or, in some cases, other Departments such as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—encouraged us to point our members towards. In truth, it is rather hard to appear as a small British gin brand or a new sparkling wine brand next to different types of British food and drink where there is probably a more established market, so that tends not to work so well for our members. We would need something more tailored to get the results we need.

[Gareth Thomas]

Why do you think the financial support has not been provided? Is the Treasury just not interested, or does it prefer to concentrate on other areas of support?

[The Chair]

Order. Forgive me; we need to keep within the scope of the Bill. I am sure that the shadow Minister will have ample other opportunities to raise such issues, but today is not the occasion. Mr Beale, you do not have to respond to that.

If there are no other questions, I thank our witness for taking the time today, and I reassure him and his office that Zoom issues happen to us all. It is no problem at all. We are glad that we were able to hear your responses and evidence today. Thank you for your time; it is much appreciated.

Miles Beale: Thank you very much.

Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Mark Jenkinson.)