Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

Greg Hands Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[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.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Drew Hendry]

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

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

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

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

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

I will respond at the end.

[Drew Hendry]

Okay.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

We have had a good debate, if a little short. Joining the great global partnership of CPTPP promises to unleash a wave of trade-led growth in our country, generating jobs and delivering prosperity to every part of the UK. The launch of negotiations for our accession is an important moment for Britain as an independent trading nation. It shows that, once again, major economies want to do more business with the UK and that it is possible to strike ambitious trade deals that go further than those negotiated by the EU. The CPTPP is a free trade area comprising 11 nations that account for 13% of global GDP, worth £9 trillion, with a combined population of 500 million across four continents. By welcoming the UK into its fold, the CPTPP will become even stronger, its share of GDP rising to 16% and gaining an even louder collective voice on the world stage in pursuit of its shared priorities. The strategic case for this was well made by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) and others as being important for the UK not just in trade but also in terms of wider strategy.

As the Secretary of State said earlier, it shifts the UK’s economic centre of gravity towards faster growing parts of the world such as Asia, where 65% of global middle-class consumers are expected to live by 2030, and the Americas, and there are great opportunities in this for UK agrifood, a point well made by my hon. Friends the Members for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie)—I was delighted to meet her farmers a couple of weeks ago—and for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams) and the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart). It is also a great opportunity for Staffordshire gin, a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell).

Britain would become the first new member of CPTPP since it was established in 2018, and other significant economies such as the Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea are looking to follow suit. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) mentioned Taiwan and he will know that I am a 30-year-long enthusiast for Taiwan; we have Joint Economic and Trade Committee talks later this year, but I am always open to better trading links with Taiwan. This is a high-standards agreement between sovereign nations—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme—and a business-focused deal that removes tariffs on 99.9% of the goods we export to CPTPP members and reduces other barriers, particularly for our vital services industry.

Turning to the content of the debate, the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), spoke for twice as long as the Secretary of State but it was all the usual doomsaying and talking the country down. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset said, she is the shadow Secretary of State against international trade. She has had three years to consider whether Labour supports this deal—three years—and she still has not made up her mind. Perhaps, however, we should not be surprised, because Labour could not make up its mind on deals with the component countries—the members. Labour abstained on Japan, is opposed to the Australia deal and against Singapore, and split three ways on the Canada deal. The right hon. Lady talked about the NHS, food safety and animal welfare; nothing in the CPTPP threatens our standards and it is clear that there will be no compromise on our standards from our manifesto.

The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) again went on endlessly about Brexit, as did his party colleague the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), but he and the SNP have never supported any trade deal ever so I do not think that whatever I say to him today is going to make him support it. He said that the UK had not agreed to join the investor-state dispute settlement. First, the UK has never lost an ISDS case and, secondly, I recommend having a look at the details. Labour put out a press release a few weeks ago saying that it decries the ISDS provisions in the Australia deal, but there are no ISDS provisions in the Australia trade deal. We heard a very considered contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins); he spoke in favour of the deal, and I agree with him that we would not sign up to the provisions that are included in the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement. Turning to the Lib Dems, Vince Cable was all in favour of these deals when he was in the coalition Government and the Minister for Trade, and he was actually in favour of ISDS proposals as well.

There are specific benefits for the cutting-edge sectors that are shaping the world of tomorrow such as AI, services and technology, and the deal will allow us to work closely with CPTPP members on modern digital trade rules, business travellers, slashing red tape, agrifood and more. When negotiations conclude, the UK’s accession will be subject to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 scrutiny process alongside the statutory Trade and Agriculture Commission report and I commend UK accession to CPTPP to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I will now suspend the House for three minutes in order to make arrangements for the next item of business.