Trade Bill (First sitting)

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

Q To follow on from that question, the Bill contains a five-year sunset clause. How practical would it be to get substantial changes to existing arrangements in that timeframe?

Christopher Howarth: The timeframe that we are working on at the moment is that we will leave the European Union on 29 March 2019, so that will be two years, then three years after that. That is a substantial time in which to negotiate. The United States and Australia negotiated a full agreement in roughly two years. Some countries take longer, some less, but that would be a substantial amount of time to revisit and improve agreements.

[Iain Stewart]

Q May I also ask about the cost of not having those continuity agreements? What would be the impact on British business if we were not able to replicate the current deals, or something very close to them, at the point of leaving?

Christopher Howarth: The countries that the European Union has agreements with—South Korea, South Africa, Mexico—are major trading partners. Something that has not been mentioned so far is the plurilateral World Trade Organisation government procurement agreement, which gives British businesses access to over £1 trillion of Government contracts around the world. As a liberal country that tends to accept contracts from other countries, it is important that we get reciprocal rights for British businesses to other countries. Remaining part of that plurilateral agreement, which the Bill allows, would be important for British businesses when seeking Government contracts abroad.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Q I have a quick question for Mr Howarth and a longer question for Mr Ashton-Hart. Mr Howarth, you are a senior researcher at the House of Commons. Who exactly do you work for?

Christopher Howarth: I work for a group of mostly Conservative MPs.