Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The opportunity for the TRA, as our independent adviser, to look at these issues is one that we have great respect for. As Members across the House will understand, we await its decision and we will look at that in due course.
Steel Safeguards
Jessica Morden Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Anne-Marie Trevelyan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right on this. As my Department champions opportunities for green trade exports, particularly in the technologies and manufacturing where the UK is now genuinely a world leader—offshore wind and others that are coming through—we want to make sure that we have the ability to find those routes to market for our brilliant British businesses. In things such as the trade deal with Australia and New Zealand, we have stripped away tariffs on green and environmental goods to ensure that those markets can open as quickly as possible and that we can see the best of British around the world.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
As others have said, extending safeguards is, of course, a welcome announcement, but all it does is preserve the status quo for steelmakers such as those in my constituency. With the potential for the targeted charging review to massively increase network costs for steelmakers, what can this Department do, in consultation with BEIS, to bring forward a green steel deal, in partnership with the industry, to make sure that the UK is the best place in the world to make steel?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The hon. Lady is a champion and the BEIS Minister on the Bench will be happy to meet her to discuss more fully the issues that she raises.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
The agreement in principle that we have just secured with New Zealand, in addition to being good in itself, helps pave the way towards the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, which will be hugely beneficial to my hon. Friend’s constituency. I thank him for the work that he has been doing in championing the Solent freeport, which will benefit Southampton but also another port just slightly further along the coast in which I have more than a passing interest.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Mr Jayawardena
We took a very careful and measured approach to this difficult issue. We are determined to back the steel sector, but we will do so in a WTO-compliant way. The Trade Remedies Authority is working very hard on this issue.
Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership
Jessica Morden Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for holding this debate. I do, however, feel obliged to point out that she has brought us here today to discuss Britain’s accession to an agreement which, as things stand, and according to the Government’s own figures, will add a maximum of 0.017% to UK GDP, yet on Monday, when the House discussed the urgent threat to the British steel industry, which is worth six times that amount to our GDP and has 34,000 jobs directly at stake, the Secretary of State could not even be bothered to turn up. Let me just say, on behalf of all the Labour MPs who spoke in that debate and the steel communities they represent, that I hope the Secretary of State was watching and that in the six days we have left before our steel safeguards expire, she will listen to reason, accept that she has been wrong, and take emergency action to keep our steel safeguards before it is too late.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
I wholeheartedly agree, on behalf of the steelworkers and steel industry in my constituency, with the point that my right hon. Friend makes. The Government are pretending that there is nothing they can do on steel safeguards, leaving our markets unprotected and undermining our whole industry. This is a real chance for the Government now, and at this point in time our UK steel industry cannot afford for it to fail.
Emily Thornberry
My hon. Friend is quite right. I recommend that the Secretary of State read the speeches of many Members in that last debate. I have to say that it reminds me of reading, in March, the Department for International Trade’s report “Global Britain, local jobs”, in which it purported to tell us how many jobs in each region and constituency were dependent on trade. It did not mention any jobs in steel or agriculture. I thought at the time that that was a mistake, but I fear that actually it looks more like a forecast.
We ought, perhaps, to turn to the CPTPP. I have three key quotes to put to the Secretary of State from esteemed figures in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, all of which I hope will illuminate what is actually going on in the accession process—certainly rather more than the Government have to date.
The Secretary of State will recognise my first quote, because it was said directly to her last July when she was discussing the CPTPP with the former Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. “The UK,” he told her,
“is going to have to identify what are its offensive interests and what are its defensive red flags…You can seek tailor-made provisions,”
but
“the other countries are going to have a…take-it-or-leave-it approach…That is a big decision for the UK.”
It is indeed a big decision, but before the negotiations have even begun, the Secretary of State has apparently conceded defeat. Indeed, reading the Government’s so-called negotiating objectives, this appears to be the only negotiation in British history in which the objective is to accept everything the other side wants as quickly as possible, with not one single demand of our own. There is not one single clause in the thousands of pages that make up the agreement where the Government will seek any exemptions or amendments to reflect Britain’s interests. That is the literal definition of being rule takers and not rule makers.
Even when the Government make a veiled reference in their document to the prospect of China joining the CPTPP, the best they can offer in response is the assertion:
“We would only ever support applicants who meet CPTPP’s high standards on rules-based free and fair trade.”
In other words, they have no opinion of their own on whether a back-door deal with China is an acceptable prospect for Britain, and no concerns at all about the Uyghurs, slave labour or genocide. All they can say instead is that China will have to obey the same trade rules as us. That weak acceptance from the Government that we cannot change the CPTPP rules is deeply worrying when it comes to protecting our NHS, our food standards and other defensive concerns.
It is also deeply frustrating when it comes to promoting the interests of British business and the adoption of British standards in the trans-Pacific region. Why are the Government not using the accession process to press for improvements to the current provisions on financial services, small businesses and mutual recognition of qualifications? Why is the Secretary of State not arguing for new chapters to cover educational exports, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and co-operation on new technology? Why are the Government not seeking to strengthen the agreement when it comes to protection of labour rights, animal welfare and the environment? The Government are doing none of those things.
Protecting Britain’s Steel Industry
Jessica Morden Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) for initiating this crucial debate in Opposition time, which shows that she is giving it the importance that it deserves, and for making such a strong case for the need for emergency legislation to allow Ministers to reject the TRA’s recommendations and temporarily extend the steel safeguards so that they do not expire at the end of the month and we can allow for a longer-term solution. It was a pity that we had such a woeful response from the Minister tonight.
Let us remember that UK Steel called the TRA’s recommendations
“a hammer blow to the UK steel sector”
and to steel communities. I echo what other hon. Members have said about the TRA recommendations. The safeguards are vital if we are to provide a stable environment for the sector and protect against unprecedented import surges from better-protected markets. Slashing those safeguards after Brexit would see the UK become one of the least protected of the major steel markets, undermining our own industry. The EU is maintaining its old steel safeguards, as is the USA. Why, at a time when the global steel market is dealing with overcapacity and looking to recover from the economic shock of the pandemic, are our Government even considering allowing the withdrawal of vital protections for our steel sector?
Steel should be at the heart of our economic recovery. It employs 33,000 people directly and is a strategic industry that is vital to our regional economies. Removing key steel safeguards would simply compound the prevailing challenges that the industry already faces. Our steelworkers, including those at Tata Llanwern, Liberty and Celsa in my constituency, are some of the most experienced and best-skilled in the world, but they already have to compete with one hand behind their back in so many ways, with sky-high industrial energy costs and frankly inadequate UK Government procurement policies. Then there is the whole issue of bonded warehouses, which effectively undercut producers by waiving duties on cheap foreign imports. We need action on that for the Liberty plant in my constituency, currently being undercut by the storage of massive imports of Turkish steel products in bonded warehouses.
When Britain left the EU, this Tory Government made a promise that we would be able to support British industry more than we had done previously and that foundation sectors such as steel would be at the forefront of the Government’s thinking. Unfortunately, here is one of the major tests of our new trading priorities, and the Government are sitting on their hands and pretending there is nothing they can do. How can our steel sites supposedly make a business case to investors for long-term projects such as decarbonising when the Government speak positively about the industry one day, only to strip away protections the next? It is a nonsense. I urge the Government to get their act together and secure a long-term solution on safeguards, which are so important to the industry. There is a motion here today that they could choose to adopt, and in doing so they could help the industry. It is a massive test for the Government, and one our industry cannot afford for them to fail.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Jayawardena
The British people will have noticed that I have now answered five questions from Labour Members on future trade agreements and, instead of seeking to secure benefits for their constituents on those deals, they are clutching at straws to stop them. The Labour party is hopelessly out of touch. This Conservative Government are focused on delivering for the British people. Unlike Labour, we have a plan for jobs and growth, and trade is central to that. We have secured trade deals with 67 countries around the world, plus the EU, covering trade worth £730 billion last year—and we are just getting started.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Graham Stuart)
We are working to de-escalate trade tensions that negatively impact steel exporters, including our pursuit of a permanent resolution to the US section 232 tariffs, which so unfairly harm the UK steel industry. I am pleased to say that in terms of the EU we have agreed tariff-rate quota allocations for UK steel exports, without which the industry could have been hit by a 25% tariff and an estimated cost of £80 million in the first half of this year alone.
Jessica Morden
Another penblwydd hapus to you, Mr Speaker.
The greatest step that Ministers can take to protect our exports is to protect our steel industry as a whole. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) asked earlier, will Ministers commit to working with Labour on a cross-party basis, as was promised in the Westminster Hall debate yesterday, to fix deficiencies in our trade remedies legislation and reverse the recommendations from the Trade Remedies Investigations Directorate that UK Steel has called “a hammer blow” to our industry?
Graham Stuart
The TRA has conducted a full review of the steel safeguard measure so that it applies to the UK in a proportionate and WTO-compliant manner. It is an independent body, as the hon. Lady knows, that provides unbiased evidence-based assessments of the need for remedies. For clarity, the Secretary of State—[Interruption.] It would be great to get through one answer without chuntering from the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), but it seems to be impossible. The Secretary of State can only accept or reject the TRA recommendation as a whole; she cannot modify or partially accept it and she cannot extend the measure if the TRA does not recommend it. However, it is crucial that the Government have the correct tools available to allow them to tackle unfair trade, and the Secretary of State will be giving careful consideration to the trade remedies framework and the powers that it affords her.
Global Britain
Jessica Morden Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Barry Gardiner
The right hon. Gentleman mistakes me. I am not seeking to reopen the debate about the EU. We are leaving the EU tomorrow, and we must forge a positive and constructive future.
Madam Deputy Speaker, if you feel any sense of déjà vu in what I believe is the fifth debate entitled “Global Britain” in the past two years, then for my part it will only be in asking the Government to set out a coherent strategy as to what that phrase is going to mean in practice. In previous debates, I heard calls from Government Members to bring back the royal yacht and talk of something called empire 2.0, but that does not constitute a strategy. To ask the Government for their strategy is not to talk Britain down or to act against the national interest; it is simply to ask that we work together as grown-ups to devise a new relationship with our closest trading partners and to agree a set of priorities for our country’s future relations with others in an increasingly fraught geopolitical context.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
I represent a city that still has a big steel industry, and 75% of our steel exports go to the EU. Does my hon. Friend agree that securing a good trading partnership with the EU is imperative if we are to protect the UK steel industry at an extremely challenging time?
Barry Gardiner
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. She will know about America’s imposition of section 232 to impose tariffs, with the excuse being that its steel industry was necessary for national security. However, I accept that the Government say they want to negotiate a zero-tariff, zero-quota free trade agreement with the EU. We need to do that, and we certainly need to do it for the steel industry, which my hon. Friend represents.
Perhaps those who have the audacity to ask for a plan ought to be prepared to provide suggestions, so in that spirit, let me be clear that the Opposition will champion the United Kingdom as a leader on the world stage that uses its position to tackle injustice and the imminent climate catastrophe. That means that we want to invest in future technologies and next generation industries, foster innovation and grow jobs in the economy, and to do so in a way that helps our trade partners to do the same. We do not see trade as a zero-sum game of winners and losers. We see open and fair trade as a way of increasing global wealth, along with global justice and equality.
At a time of global turmoil and escalating trade wars, it is imperative to have a strategy that ensures that the UK is not helpless against a triple assault: the dumping of subsidised products into our markets, which undercuts our producers; punitive protectionist tariffs imposed upon our exports by our would-be partners; and potential disruption to our trade with the EU, which is still by far our largest trading partner. To that end, our relationship with the European Union must be the priority. We need a free trade agreement that not only protects our existing trade with zero tariffs and zero quotas, but ensures minimum future disruption in both goods and services. We cannot and must not allow a situation to arise whereby our businesses face tariffs on their goods to the EU, alongside onerous and complex administrative burdens, border inspections or delays to the supply chain.
Will the Minister address whether the Government intend to remain part of the pan-Euro-Mediterranean cumulation regime? If not, what is their assessment of the impact that that might have on UK industries and of how it might affect third countries with which we have concluded roll-over agreements and that have already included cumulation regimes in their own subsequent treaties? Producers must not be doubly impacted by a surge of cheaper imports from overseas, particularly where they are manufactured to standards lower than our own or in markets that are distorted by unfair or illegal practices.
The Secretary of State knows that she is introducing what has been called the
“weakest trade remedies regime in the world”,
and industry confidence was knocked still further by interim most favoured nation tariff measures that propose to abolish tariffs on up to 87% of imports. The EU and US are introducing safeguard measures that could see tariffs on our exports and increased diversion of dumped goods on to our market, wiping out foundation industries and the thousands of jobs that they account for in steel, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) said, in ceramics, which the Secretary of State talked about, and in major producers such as the automotive sector. I ask the Minister of State, Department for International Trade, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), to set out in his reply to the debate out how the Government will protect our manufacturers, producers and farmers from a flurry of such imports under future trade agreements.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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George Hollingbery
As my hon. Friend will know, my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) is very keen on our keeping up contact with the Mayor of the West Midlands combined authority. We of course do so, and create contacts with businesses that way. The strategic trade advisory group, which will be helping us with FTAs, includes representation from regional business. We will always be there to consult with local business, and I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) to contact the local DIT business office in Birmingham in relation to any businesses in Redditch that need its help.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Does the Minister accept that the devolved Administrations must be fully involved in developing both the negotiation mandate and the negotiations themselves when the international trade negotiations have an impact on devolved competencies?
George Hollingbery
I have visited the devolved Administrations several times and I talk with the Ministers on a regular basis. I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady that the devolved Administrations have a key part to play as we go forward and negotiate our free trade agreements. We are currently in negotiation with the DAs on putting together what is known as a concordat on how they will be implemented. The progress on that, to be quite frank with the House, has been disappointingly slow. From our end, we have not reached an agreed policy position, but we will do so shortly, and I am keen that the devolved Administrations are properly involved.
Victoria Atkins
My hon. Friend has distilled into his question the important point that the gender pay gap is not just about the heads of companies—directors and so on—important though that aspect is; it is also about helping women at the very lowest ends of the pay scales. We want to encourage them to seek better jobs and have better incomes. That is precisely why my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities is setting out a strong strategy on economic empowerment for women, so that they are treated fairly in the workplace, no matter their pay level, and ensuring that employers realise that if they are going to get the best of their workforce, they need to pay their female staff properly.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)
Universal credit treats all genders equally, and female employment is at a record high. The changes to the tax threshold and the national living wage and the increases to the universal credit work allowance will specifically assist women more on an ongoing basis.
Jessica Morden
On behalf of the Go Girls, a group of young parents in Newport, may I raise with the Minister one of the unfairnesses of the universal credit system? Lone parents who are under 25 get paid a lower rate than they would have been paid under tax credits, causing great hardship to young parents and children. Will the Minister help me to lobby the Department for Work and Pensions on the issue?
Guy Opperman
I note the point, which I have discussed with the hon. Lady previously. I am happy for the Minister with responsibility for this specific matter to sit down with the hon. Lady and her particular constituents to ensure that it is addressed, but I should make the point that this April we brought in the £1,000 increase to the UC work allowance, which should make a difference in the interim, before such a conversation takes place.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Dr Fox
Actually, the share of our exports to the European Union accounted for by services is less than our average exported to the rest of the world. In fact, the future of our services will be dependent on global services arrangements, and outside the EU we will have a golden opportunity to shape the global services agenda in a way that suits the United Kingdom’s best interests. It is time that we in this House started to reflect the optimism and confidence of the British public who voted to leave the EU.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade (Dr Liam Fox)
We are working closely with the UK steel sector to provide as much continuity as possible in trading arrangements after we leave the EU. This includes establishing the Trade Remedies Authority to help to prevent unfair trading practices and identifying more than half a billion pounds’-worth of opportunities for UK steel producers.
Jessica Morden
When the all-party group on steel met key voices in the industry this week, it was made clear that there is a real lack of engagement from the Government on steel safeguard measures for the UK market in a no-deal scenario. Will the Minister commit to meet UK Steel urgently to discuss this critical detail for an industry that contributes £1.6 billion to the economy?
Dr Fox
I do not recognise that description; the Government are indeed involved in talks with the industry about safeguards. The hon. Lady will know that the best way to avoid the problems she identifies is to support the Prime Minister’s deal. Those who keep talking about the pitfalls of no deal but keep voting against a deal are making those pitfalls more likely.
Penny Mordaunt
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that there is some great work out there: 97% of businesses offer some form of flexible working—to tie this back to the original question—but only 68% of employees for whom that situation is available are taking up this option. I think this is changing, but there are further things we can do to encourage it. Sharing good practice is one of those things, and I think the charters have played a good role in that.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Lady for putting another example of good practice out there. I absolutely would encourage that. It is only by sharing good practice that we are going to be able to encourage employers that are not doing that to raise their game.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jessica Morden Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Graham Stuart)
The UK’s automotive sector is one of our strongest industries and, for that reason, it has been at the heart of our negotiations with the EU. The agreement announced last night will protect integrated supply chains and allow the industry to continue to thrive.
Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman is right, which was why we put the interests of that industry at the heart of our negotiations. That is why the deal provides the supply chain with exactly the continuity needed to ensure its successful growth, and it is why I ask the hon. Gentleman to ensure that he supports it; otherwise, he will be putting all those automotive jobs at risk.
Jessica Morden
The UK’s steel sector currently provides around a third of our automotive sector’s steel requirements. What are Ministers doing to replicate the EU’s steel safeguards, which prevent sudden surges of imports, after Brexit?
Graham Stuart
We have set up the Trade Remedies Authority, which I note the Labour party voted against. We have put in place all the measures necessary to ensure that producers are protected from dumping. It was a shame that the Labour party voted against the very measures that sought to protect British jobs, and I do not know why the hon. Lady joined those on her Front Bench in doing so.