Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Greg Hands Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th February 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

May I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Davies, and welcome all members to this Committee for line-by-line consideration of this important Bill? Over 40 extraordinary minutes, we have heard an attempt by the Labour Front Bench to reopen the Second Reading debate, but I will try to answer the questions put to me.

Clause 1 is a non-controversial clause that defines the terms used in the Bill. “The CPTPP” means the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership signed at Santiago on 8 March 2018, including the UK accession protocol as it has effect in the United Kingdom from time to time. “The UK accession protocol” means the protocol on the accession of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the CPTPP, signed at Auckland and Bandar Seri Begawan on 16 July 2023.

We heard on Second Reading that the official Labour party position is to support the accession of the United Kingdom to the CPTPP, but over the past 40 minutes we have heard a series of speeches that give the opposite impression. That is often the case in today’s Labour party: there is a diktat from the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) up above, but below him something different is done, particularly by Members who were active when the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) was the party leader. The hon. Member for Harrow West reminded us of his time on the Trade Bill Committee, when he was opposed to all UK trade agreements. Without myself embarking on a Second Reading speech, I wonder how much of that dichotomy is still there in today’s Labour party.

[Mr Dhesi]

I caution the Minister that there is no dichotomy here. As we said in the Chamber on Second Reading, although we are in favour of acceding to the CPTPP, the job of His Majesty’s Opposition is to go through the Bill line by line and point out the various anomalies, issues and concerns—not just our own, but those of movements including the Trades Union Congress and other voluntary and civil society organisations. Otherwise, we would be heading towards another car crash. Given that the governing party has managed to crash the economy, does the Minister agree that we need safeguards from the Opposition?

[Greg Hands]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for drawing attention to the fact that this is all about line-by-line scrutiny. I certainly welcome that, if it is indeed the approach that he will be taking. None the less, I feel that I should answer the questions that he and the hon. Member for Harrow West have raised.

Having been an Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson myself, I should point out that the way a Bill Committee generally works is that Members table amendments about things they wish to speak about, rather than seeking on clause 1 to shoehorn in all kinds of additional questions and issues on which they have not tabled amendments. The Labour party has been in opposition for some time now—close to 14 years—and one might have thought that it would have learned some lessons about how to be a more effective Opposition. None the less, I will respond to the questions in the spirit in which they were asked.

The first question was about Canada. Of course, the hon. Member for Harrow West was a frequent rebel when it came to the UK and EU trade agreement with Canada, so he has a bit of form here. He said that there is an important roll-over of the rules of origin, and he is absolutely right, but what he did not tell us is that he opposed those rules of origin in the first place when the comprehensive economic and trade agreement was passed in this very Committee Room seven years ago. It is a bit rich for him now to say that something is important today when he was one of a small minority of Labour Front Benchers who opposed it.

[Gareth Thomas]

Will the Minister give way?

[Greg Hands]

Of course, if the hon. Gentleman is going to explain whether he has changed his mind. Is he still opposed to CETA? I am sure he is going to tell us.

[Gareth Thomas]

First, I thank the Minister for describing me as a frequent rebel. I am hugely grateful to him for that characterisation: it will appear on my election leaflets for years to come. He has raised my vote on CETA many times, and I suspect he will do so many times in future; I do hope so. I gently make the point that he promised us he would help to negotiate a better deal with Canada, but he has not done so. In fact, we have worse terms of trade with Canada than when we were in the EU .

[Greg Hands]

I do not think that this is the time to discuss the whole future and present of our overall trading relations with Canada, but I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that he has form on this. We remain open to restarting the bilateral talks; of course, that rolled-over agreement remains in place and nothing has been undone by the pause on the bilateral talks. We continue to work with Canada on its CPTPP ratification.

The hon. Member for Harrow West called for an urgent debate—we support having one, if parliamentary time can be found—under the CRaG process. I think he has grown to dislike the CRaG process, but I point out that he is one of the few members of this Committee who voted in favour of the process back in 2010.

[Gareth Thomas]

I well understand the Minister wanting to reach for a piece of Labour legislation for comfort in the difficult circumstances of this particular Bill. I gently point out to him, however, that we have now left the European Union, which the CRaG process, when put into legislation, assumed we would continue to be a part of. I therefore gently suggest that we need to update the scrutiny processes. The Minister appears to be one of the last people on the Government Benches who is opposed to improving parliamentary scrutiny. With an election coming, given that he might be sitting on the Opposition Benches—if he survives—he should appreciate better scrutiny arrangements. Perhaps he is willing to seek the advice of the hon. Member for Totnes on how scrutiny arrangements might be improved.

[Greg Hands]

The hon. Gentleman and I were in Parliament—as you were, Mr Davies—when CRaG was passed, and it was not dependent on or linked to the UK’s membership of the European Union. It was a process for the parliamentary ratification of all international treaties. I gently remind the hon. Gentleman of that.

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman mentions parliamentary scrutiny, because I have looked back through the annals of time. As the Committee may know, I have been closely involved with CPTPP for a long time—since I first became Minister of State with responsibility for international trade back in 2016. I checked back on the parliamentary scrutiny that we have had over the years, as I was specifically asked to.

In June 2021, we published our negotiation objectives. We have provided regular updates to Parliament on CPTPP: two oral statements and, extraordinarily, 16 written ministerial statements. I do not think that there has been a lack of parliamentary scrutiny. Ministers and the chief negotiator have appeared before five separate Select Committees to discuss CPTPP and to answer questions about it. We had the Trade and Agriculture Commission’s report in December 2023 and the section 42 report in January 2024, and the CRaG process has now started. There has been no shortage of parliamentary scrutiny.

The hon. Member for Harrow West asked about future membership. I will not be drawn on that subject, but I refer him to the Auckland principles; he can check out what those are all about. Had he really wanted to talk about future membership, he could have tabled an amendment. I will certainly look at the RSPCA concerns, but, again, he has not tabled an amendment on them.

As for the Select Committee, the hon. Gentleman has been trying to get it to do his job for him. He cited a recommendation from the Select Committee that we have a fresh impact assessment, but I note that that is not a recommendation on which he himself has tabled an amendment. Had he done his homework over the past couple of weeks, he need not have made a speech today covering all kinds of new areas on which he has failed to table an amendment.

As for ISDS and palm oil, we will come on to debate them with new clauses 5 and 1. I think the hon. Gentleman floated something about a Eurotunnel case from many years ago; if he wants to give some detail on that, he can write to me as to what that may have all been about. Of course, it may well have been in his own time as Trade Minister under the last Labour Government.

[Gareth Thomas]

On the Eurotunnel question, the Minister might like to check with Lord Johnson, because he seemed to know a little bit more about the case than the Minister appears to. Perhaps when the Minister goes back to his Department he might seek out his noble Friend and get some background from him.

The problem with ISDS, particularly in the Eurotunnel case, is that War on Want had to table a freedom of information request to find out what had happened. That level of secrecy is one of the problems with ISDS. As the Minister has access to those records, it would be useful if he published or made clear what happened in that case. That would help us, as a country, to learn how we might avoid such claims in future.

[Greg Hands]

Again, if the hon. Gentleman had wished to debate that, he might have tabled an amendment on it. Maybe he will do so later in the Bill’s passage.

[Gareth Thomas]

On a point of order, Mr Davies. I gently ask whether you might draw the Minister’s attention to new clause 5, which is specifically about ISDS.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, that was not a point of order. I should say that he was leading with his chin by pointing that out, because his remarks should have been confined to our debate on new clause 5.

[Greg Hands]

In conclusion, I urge that this short, technical and non-controversial clause stand part of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Treatment of conformity assessment bodies etc

[Gareth Thomas]

I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 2, page 1, line 19, leave out from “subject to” to the end of the subsection and insert

“approval by resolution of each House of Parliament”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gareth Thomas]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention and the experience of working in the Welsh Government that she brings to our considerations. It is striking that the Welsh Government raised a series of concerns, which they felt the Government had not addressed properly. For example, they noted that consultation with the Government had been mixed; at various times, it had been quite poor and had got better. In the last few weeks, before accession was announced, it had deteriorated again. I suspect that is about Ministers not wanting to hear different points of view and challenges to their ideological standpoint. For the benefit of the country, we need to ensure that we move forward together. Surely we are stronger together if we have better consultation and parliamentary scrutiny. On that basis, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Greg Hands]

I thank the hon. Members for Harrow West, for Slough and for City of Chester for tabling the amendments in the group. Again, I noticed that the greater part of the speech by the hon. Member for Harrow West was about things that were not actually in the amendment. I gently remind Members that he perhaps used AI to help him to table his amendments in the first place—in which case he shows some of the limitations of following a slavish approach when it comes to artificial intelligence. None the less, I will speak to the amendments before us.

First, I will briefly outline clause 2 and conformity assessment bodies. To comply with the requirement on our accession, we need to change some of the UK’s subordinate legislation, which requires conformity assessment bodies to be established in this country or in countries with which the UK has a mutual recognition agreement. The legislative changes do not alter the regulatory requirements for products entering this country—that is really important to understand. Any overseas conformity assessment bodies approved by the UK will carry out assessment against regulations that apply in this country, not those regulations applying in the CPTPP party in which they are established.

The changes do not mean that conformity assessment bodies established in other CPTPP parties’ territories will gain automatic approval. Instead, all CPTPP-based conformity assessment bodies will need to demonstrate that they meet the relevant UK requirements, such as being accredited by the UK’s national accreditation body, UKAS—not as familiar a UKAS as UCAS. The obligation also applies to other parties to the agreement. It is obviously a treaty with multiple countries, which means that UK conformity assessment bodies will be able to apply for approval from CPTPP parties to carry out conformity assessment against their regulations.

Before I mention the term “CPTPP parties” again, I should explain that they are countries that have acceded to the CPTPP. That would allow UK manufacturers exporting to CPTPP parties to have their products tested in the UK rather than overseas, which could save our exporters considerable time and money. It also means that UK conformity assessment bodies could enter lucrative new markets with their services, as approximately £10 billion in UK exports to CPTPP parties were covered by conformity assessment procedures in 2021. This clause is necessary to allow the UK to comply with the technical barriers to trade, or TBT, chapter of CPTPP, to meet our international obligations upon accession and to accede to CPTPP.

I will turn first to amendment 1, which concerns the scrutiny of secondary legislation made under the Bill, before speaking to amendment 2, which concerns the devolved Administrations and what it calls “regional government”. Let me emphasise how seriously the Government take their commitment to keep Parliament and the public apprised of the Government’s negotiations for new free trade agreements. I read out a whole series of consultative interactions with Parliament that have happened during our commitment for the UK to accede to CPTPP. Let me be clear that amendment 1 would mean a vote not on the agreement—which we worked hard to keep Parliament informed of through various debates, ministerial statements and Select Committee appearances—but on the secondary legislation regarding the implementation of the trade agreement. Parliament now has the opportunity to formally scrutinise the UK’s accession protocol to the CPTPP through the usual procedure under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, or CRaG. The Secretary of State has also written to the Leader of the House to request a general debate during the sitting days of CRaG. CRaG, which commenced yesterday, is the main avenue for scrutiny of this deal, not specific secondary legislation made under the power in this Bill.

[Anthony Mangnall]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister, but I think it is important, as a member of the Business and Trade Committee, to say how far we have come in the scrutiny of trade agreements. When the Secretary of State came in front of the Business and Trade Committee recently, she made it clear that we would have the debate that he alluded to during the CRaG’s 21 days and that the House would have a chance to properly scrutinise the trade agreement. I hope that will be the form for all future agreements.

[Greg Hands]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. Of course, it is not entirely within my gift to ensure that that debate takes place. That will be down to the business managers and the usual channels, as is usual for scheduling parliamentary business. However, I welcome his recognition of how much extra effort the Government have put into ensuring parliamentary scrutiny—earlier I mentioned the 16 written ministerial statements and appearances between before five different Select Committees.

On the secondary legislation in question, the power in clause 2 would ensure that conformity assessment bodies established in CPTPP party territories will be treated no less favourably than ones located in the UK in relation to conformity assessments for products supplied in this country, pursuant to article 8.6 of CPTPP. This is a narrow power that is designed to make minor technical amendments to existing secondary legislation and some assimilated law.

The negative procedure is reasonable and appropriate for such amendments. That is a position supported by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, or DPRRC—the experts in this area, at least from a parliamentary perspective. It indicated that there was nothing in the Bill to which it wished to draw the House’s attention. The powers in the Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Act 2023 were similarly subject to the negative procedure, and the DPRRC raised no concerns in relation to the delegated powers in that Act either.

Amendment 2 deals with consultation on the treatment of conformity assessment bodies under clause 2. I am grateful to hon. Members for the opportunity to discuss the important issues raised by this amendment. The breadth of modern free trade agreements means that some policy issues will fall within the competence of devolved Administrations. It has been clear from the inception of the UK’s independent trade policy—as indeed it was when we were members of the European Union—that aspects of trade policy would impinge on areas that were within the devolved competence of the nations, agriculture being the most obvious example. That is why my Department has established a significant programme of engagement with the devolved Administrations. I meet quarterly with the Ministers in a ministerial forum for trade, for example, and our officials speak all the time.

However, it is vital for the UK’s ability to meet its commitments under CPTPP that CPTPP and protocol obligations should be implemented in the UK. Adding a consultation requirement before secondary legislation can be made pursuant to clause 2 could delay ratification of the agreement. Going back to earlier comments, I am never entirely sure whether Opposition Front Benchers are in favour of this agreement. They keep trying to introduce new ways to delay ratification, which makes me suspect that, when it comes to it, rather a lot of them do not. If implementing legislation is not in place, the UK would be in breach of CPTPP on day one of entry into force of the accession protocol, as the UK would not be in compliance with the terms of CPTPP.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

The schedule.

New clause 1—Assessment of the impact of the CPTPP Chapter on government procurement–environment—

“The Secretary of State must, within three years of Royal Assent to this Act, lay before Parliament assessments of the impact of the implementation of the CPTPP Chapter on government procurement on—

(a) the Government’s plans to tackle climate change;

(b) the sustainable production of forest risk commodities, including palm oil, within UK supply chains,

(c) deforestation, and

(d) the Government’s environmental targets and environmental improvement plans established under the Environment Act 2021.”

New clause 2—Assessment of the impact of the CPTPP Chapter on government procurement–employment and industry—

“The Secretary of State must, within three years of Royal Assent to this Act, lay before Parliament assessments of the impact of the implementation of the CPTPP Chapter on government procurement on—

(a) manufacturing in the United Kingdom;

(b) the job market in the United Kingdom, including but not limited to gender inequality therein;

(c) the level of procurement by local authorities from businesses in their local authority area;

(d) the delivery of public services in the United Kingdom; and

(e) the Government's commitments to the conventions of the International Labour Organisation.”

New clause 7—Impact assessment of implementation of the CPTPP Chapter on Government Procurement on developing country trading partners—

“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the passing of this Act and every 12 months thereafter, publish a report on the impact of the implementation of the Government Procurement chapter of the CPTPP on developing country trading partners of the United Kingdom.

(2) The impact assessment under subsection (1) must include an assessment of—

(a) social, environmental, and economic impact on countries with high levels of dependence on the UK market;

(b) steps that have been taken to consult with affected trading partners;

(c) proposed remediation measures for potential economic damage;

(d) how the experience and impact of implementation might inform negotiation of future trade agreements.”

[Greg Hands]

Clause 3 is vital to ensure that we bring procurement legislation into compliance with the Government procurement chapter of CPTPP to ensure that the UK is ready to accede. Clause 3 and, accordingly, the schedule amend domestic procurement legislation, namely the existing procurement regulations that regulate procurement and the Procurement Act 2023, which will regulate procurement for England, Wales and Northern Ireland when that Act substantively commences in October 2024. Those amendments extend the UK’s market access obligations to suppliers from CPTPP parties and introduce two minor technical measures, which will ensure full implementation of the requirements of the Government procurement chapter of CPTPP. Joining CPTPP will build on the existing comprehensive agreements that the UK has with most parties by providing UK businesses with even greater legally guaranteed access to opportunities in their Government procurement markets in several areas.

[Samantha Dixon (City of Chester) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I ask for your indulgence and that of hon. Members as this is my first Bill Committee since my election in December 2022.

New clause 1 focuses on the environmental impact of the Bill and aims to keep the Government accountable for their plans to tackle climate change—something we should all be mindful of at this time. It is important to seek further clarification on the environmental impact of the CPTPP agreement and how the Government intend to mitigate detrimental environmental impacts of the UK’s accession to the bloc.

Around 90% of the world’s oil palm trees are grown on a few islands in Malaysia and Indonesia, and just 1% of Malaysian palm oil smallholdings are certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. That 1% constitutes around 40% of all palm oil plantations in Malaysia. When it comes to palm oil, education is key. We continue to see ongoing misconceptions around sustainable palm oil. Despite 60% of people in the UK knowing about palm oil, a recent Kantar report found that more than 85% did not know about sustainable palm oil, which is an efficient crop with significantly less environmental impact on the land than other vegetable oils. Replacing it with another oil would mean using up to eight times more land for oils such as rapeseed or sunflower. Sustainable palm oil can be beneficial for biodiversity and to protect, conserve and enhance ecosystems. There is still widespread concern about the effect of reduced tariffs, for example, on expanding palm oil imports leading to deforestation. This is a major environmental crisis and it is the second largest contributor to climate change globally after burning fossil fuels.

Nearly 90% of deforestation is attributed to agricultural expansion. The impact of that is not only having an effect on our climate but has resulted in a sharp decline in precious native wildlife such as orangutans, rhinoceroses, hornbills, tigers and elephants, pushing them to the brink of extinction. Indeed, there are now more MPs in Westminster than there are Sumatran tigers on the planet, and deforestation has played a major role in that dreadful statistic.