Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Greg Hands

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Clause 2 of the Trade Bill gives powers to Ministers, potentially for the whole of the next decade, to sort out the issue of the 60 or so trade agreements that we currently benefit from with third countries by virtue of our membership with the EU. Far from being resolved in the next 16 months, is it not the case that that issue—dividing up tariff quotas and so on, and defining a new UK-EU trading relationship—rather than the fiction of the Secretary of State’s fantasy trade deals elsewhere, will dominate the work of the Department over the next few years?

[Greg Hands]

We already touched on this a little earlier in question time. Can we be absolutely clear that my predecessor, Lord Price, and I have met all the key trading partners that are subject to those deals? We have in-principle agreement from most of them, and we have had no problem from any of them about transitioning those key trade agreements, so we do not foresee that being a difficulty. It is a technical process. Of course, there are one or two things that need to be sorted out in talks with those partners, but we are in the right position and we look forward to transitioning those agreements as a key part of our trading future.