Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Christian Matheson]

I believe that it is still going through the process, but it is the principle on which the case is based that concerns me: the principle that corporations should have their own private mechanism for resolving disputes, rather than adopting the accepted legal procedures of the country in question.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

Does not the ISDS system effectively constitute a private court staffed by private judges with private lawyers, based on private law for private profits?

[Christian Matheson]

What a shame that I am not as articulate as my hon. Friend. She has hit the nail on the head. ISDS is a mechanism that undermines the rule of law by giving a separate system to large globalised corporations and taking away from them any sense of responsibility to elected Parliaments such as ours, or to countries like Egypt where we may be hoping to foster and develop democracy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daniel Zeichner]

I certainly agree with my right hon. Friend that real problems are created by our own Government, and we do not just have to fear TTIP, but TTIP might make the situation worse. As someone who endured the horrors of a tortuous and expensive tendering process for our health services in Cambridgeshire during the past few years and has seen it collapse spectacularly and expensively in recent weeks, my advice to the House is: “Don’t go there.”

We have had reassurances from Ministers. Recently, the Minister for Skills said that

“the Government were entirely satisfied that the position regarding TTIP would not threaten the public status of our NHS or other public services. We were entirely satisfied that there was absolutely no intention on the part of the Commission in negotiating the agreement, or on the part of any other EU member state, to allow the status of either our public services or theirs to be threatened.”—[Official Report, 9 July 2015; Vol. 598, c. 568.]

I must say that I am not so sure, not just because of who told us that, but because, from what I have heard, my constituents are not satisfied and because we will not be satisfied until we have concrete proof that a TTIP deal would not irreversibly expose the NHS to competition and threaten its very basis as a public service.

Finally, TTIP is no ordinary trade agreement. Its prime objective is the removal of regulatory barriers to trade, but there is a significant gap between EU and US regulations in a host of areas—safety at work, food production, the use of pesticides and GM crops are just some of them. The danger is that instead of TTIP harmonising regulations upwards to remove regulatory barriers, it will seek the mutual recognition of regulations between the EU and the US. That will inevitably lead to pressure for deregulation in the EU, as EU businesses find that they can no longer compete against US companies that operate to inferior standards of environmental protection and health and safety legislation.

[Jo Stevens]

There are significant concerns about the United States not ratifying the International Labour Organisation conventions and about violations of fundamental labour rights in the United States, such as the right to organise and the right to negotiate collectively. Does my hon. Friend support the implementation of those core ILO standards within TTIP?

[Daniel Zeichner]

It would most certainly be good for our Government to recognise many such obligations, and certainly to do so within TTIP. I wanted to conclude that section of my speech by saying, to put it rather crudely, that the US can keep Donald Trump—we do not want that here.

These issues are not easy to resolve, but we should proceed with caution. A trade agreement that brings economic benefits for our country is undoubtedly welcome, but putting ourselves at a disadvantage, undermining our public services and weakening consumer and workplace safeguards is not. We deserve to know what is going on, and we demand that the Government stop ducking and dodging and ensure that future negotiations with the EU and the US are done in the open so that everyone can make an informed judgment.