Future Free Trade Agreements

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 21st February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who takes an interest in these issues, for his intervention. Not only would I like to see those maintained, but I would like to see us use our greater freedom to enhance them. For example, I would like to see a greater convergence of our trade and our development policies; I would like to see us use outward direct investment to help some of the poorest countries develop the ability to add value to their primary commodities; and I would like then for us to be able to use our freedoms in tariff policy to be able to reduce those tariffs on those value-added goods. It cannot be right that countries that produce coffee or fish are penalised for roasting their coffee beans or canning their fish when they try to sell them into our markets. By bringing those two elements together, we would be able to bring enormous benefit and enable people to trade their way to prosperity, rather than being as dependent on our aid policies as they are today. I am grateful to colleagues on both sides of the House who have come forward to us with proposals on that, because I think that we could find a strong bipartisan consensus in this country to be able to do some of that work.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

We have already shown that we are very capable of getting contracts, for instance, as the Secretary of State knows and as I saw from direct involvement, with China in terms of the agri-food sector in Northern Ireland. We have a £200 million contract over four years, which is an example of what we can do. Does the Secretary of State feel that the personal, family and business contacts we have with Australia, New Zealand and the USA will inevitably lead to further trade deals that will benefit us all in the UK, and does he share the confidence that I and many others in this House have that the trade deals we will get will benefit all in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

[Dr Fox]

The hon. Gentleman makes several interesting points, and of course not all of the improved openings will come from former bilateral free trade agreements. The case he makes about opening up the dairy sector in China, which as he correctly suggests is worth about a quarter of a billion pounds to the Northern Ireland economy, came from our bilateral engagement with the Chinese Government and looking at their own regulations, so it was produced by a unilateral change by China, rather than a bilateral agreement. In many ways, it will be the opening up of sectors rather than bilateral agreements that will see the UK be able to increase access. The hon. Gentleman also makes a very good point about some of those other countries, because we have strong bilateral and personal links that I hope in the case of the United States, for example, will enable us to be involved at a state as well as a federal level in improving British trading access into those markets.