Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

Debate between John Healey and Baroness Primarolo

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I remember a series of very high-profile international trade trips led by Prime Minister Blair and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) as Prime Minister, but I have no idea about the figures. My point is not to offer lessons, but to make the case for the importance of trade as a part of a strengthening UK economy and of our efforts to secure a more balanced economic recovery and more sustainable growth in the future, as well as therefore to make the case for the importance of the TTIP to the UK, not just the European Union.

I suppose people may say, “Look, you’re a Labour MP. Why on earth are you making this argument about international trade and capitalism?” I have to say that I am also part of a Labour movement, which stretches back to Keir Hardie, that has a great internationalist tradition of qualified optimism about the benefits of trade. Hardie described international trade as a way of fostering shared values:

“Despite the keenness of commercial struggle there comes a time when on each side there grows up a feeling that underneath the hard bargaining…there is a human element…the dykes that separate man from man are broken down, and the waters of their common humanity begin to intermix and commingle”.

I can tell the hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon that it was the pioneering 1945 Labour Government who signed the first incarnation of the general agreement on tariffs and trade, which was of course the forerunner of the World Trade Organisation.

I do not want to labour this point too strongly in a cross-party debate, but it was in the same progressive spirit that Franklin D. Roosevelt encouraged trade as a way of dragging the US out of the great depression after the protectionism of his Republican predecessor Herbert Hoover. As a pro-trade Democrat, Roosevelt wanted clear rules and clear standards—in other words, fair as well as free trade. He said:

“Goods produced under conditions which do not meet a rudimentary standard to decency should be regarded as contraband and not allowed to pollute the channels of international commerce.”

My argument is that that progressive pro-trade case is even more important with the TTIP than with other trade deals, because a deal between the US and the EU would, as I have said, cover a third of world trade and involve countries responsible for almost half the world’s output. The size of our combined economies and the scale of the potential deal mean that it could set standards for future agreements with other countries on consumer safeguards, workers’ rights, environmental protection, trade rules and legal process.

Finally, to bring this together—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I hope that for the right hon. Gentleman “finally” means finally. The recommended time limit is 10 to 15 minutes, and he has now been speaking for more than 20 minutes. The debate is limited to three hours, and many hon. Members have indicated that they want to speak. I hope that he will not say, “Finally”, “In conclusion” and then “Finally, finally”, but that he is starting his last few sentences.

[John Healey]

I am grateful for your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I had not appreciated that the debate is limited to three hours, rather than running until the Adjournment at 7 pm.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. For clarification for all hon. Members, the debate is a timed one. It will last only three hours. It will not run any longer. That means that there may be more time for the Adjournment debate, but this one cannot last for more than three hours.

[John Healey]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall resist any more interventions—I have taken plenty already—and I will rattle through my four suggested tests, about which I am happy to elaborate on other occasions.

First, any good fair trade deal must deliver on jobs and growth. There is good evidence to suggest that it could do so if we get it right. As we discussed seven months ago in the previous debate, we need from the Government a very clear area-by-area analysis of where potential benefits might come in the UK.

Secondly, we need a deal resulting from negotiations that are open and accountable to those that it will affect. The European Commission has taken significant steps on that, as has the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Thirdly, we need to aim for the highest possible standards of consumer, environmental and labour protection. Commissioner de Gucht’s statement in London last week was very interesting and important. He said that

“no standard in Europe will be lowered because of this trade deal; not on food, not on the environment, not on social protection, not on data protection. I will make sure that TTIP does not become a ‘dumping’ agreement.”

He also said that

“we are happy to be scrutinised on this”.

I can tell him that he will be: that is part of our role in this Parliament and part of the role of the public.

Fourthly and finally, a good deal must allow sufficient leeway for Governments to act in their national interests. No trade deal should put at risk the vital democratic right of Governments to legislate in their national interests. Importantly, the Commission has stated:

“TTIP should explicitly state that legitimate government public policy decisions cannot be over-ridden.”

I say to the Minister that it is up to the UK Government to ensure that that means nothing less than an exemption for the NHS from any deal. We did that in the Canadian deal, which states:

“Health care, public education, other social services excluded”.

The NHS can and must be exempted in that way from the TTIP.

Finally, finally, Madam Deputy Speaker, those are the tests on which we all have a right to call negotiators, Governments and Parliaments to account. I hope that Ministers will accept them as measures of success, act to secure them in the negotiations, and account for them to the public and in Parliament at each stage of the negotiations ahead.

EU-US Trade and Investment Agreement

Debate between John Healey and Baroness Primarolo

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Before the right hon. Gentleman quotes President Obama, I would gently remind him that he has been speaking for 20 minutes and I will have to set a time limit on Back-Bench contributions in this debate, so I would be grateful if he began to bring his comments to a conclusion.

[John Healey]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I will indeed. I think I have spoken for probably not quite 15 minutes, given the interventions I have taken, but I am conscious of what you have said.

When President Obama was with our Prime Minister in Washington in mid-May, he put it very delicately:

“I think the UK’s participation in the EU is an expression of its influence and its role in the world, as well as, obviously, a very important economic partnership.”

However, his officials were much blunter. They made it clear that there would be little appetite in Washington and no deal for Britain if it left the European Union. I have already said to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) that some of the research suggests that European countries that are not part of the European Union would lose out most in the event of such an agreement.

However, this agreement must be well regulated and command public confidence. It will not and cannot be a deal done in the diplomatic backrooms, because Congress and, now, the European Parliament must approve the terms of any agreement. The European Parliament has already shown its mettle in rejecting the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement that was recently negotiated, including with Japan, Australia, Canada and the US. Unanimity, and not just a qualified majority, may well be needed in the Council of Ministers to approve some parts of any future agreement in, say trade in services, intellectual property, foreign direct investment and anything to do with social, education or health services. There is also a case for expecting any agreement to involve mixed competences. In other words, there could be a contestable case that member states, rather than the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, will have to ratify any elements of such an agreement dealing with, for instance, intellectual property, transport or investor-state dispute mechanisms.

Let me begin to wind up. There are four things that the Government could do to help to secure a successful, well negotiated agreement that commands wide support. First, they should swallow hard, accept that we are in the hands of the European Union and throw their weight behind the Commission’s negotiators. That means—I say this to the Minister—no public criticism, no freelance discussions with the US and no distancing ourselves from the deal while it is being negotiated.

Secondly, the Government should map and publish the jobs linked to foreign direct investment and exports in every area of Britain. The US does that on a state-by-state basis for every member of Congress and every Senator. Even the British embassy in Washington, together with the CBI, has produced a state-by-state analysis of the jobs there that are linked to exports to the UK. Surely we can do that for ourselves in Britain as well.

Thirdly, the Government should deal with the fears that will arise during negotiations that could derail public or parliamentary support for the agreement. These include concerns about the NHS being opened up to big US health care companies and concerns about employment, consumer or environmental standards being weakened. There might also be concerns about the investor-state dispute system—even though the EU and the US have long established traditions and well proven systems of due process, the rule of law and respect for property rights—particularly when an ISDS is being abused in the way that Veolia, the French company, is abusing the system in trying to sue the Egyptian Government for raising the national minimum wage.

Fourthly, the Government should make the process open and transparent to the public and Parliament. In the US and the European Parliament, the negotiators are holding briefing sessions—in the Parliament and with the Parliament—before and after each set of negotiations. They are also doing that with wider interest groups and making public some of the position papers as they go into the negotiations. I would like much more formal reporting and accountability of the UK Government to Parliament on EU matters. Other countries, such as Germany, Portugal and Denmark, have formal legal agreements with their Governments and Parliaments covering negotiation mandates, the provision of documents, and notification and reporting arrangements. It would help to build wider confidence in, and strong democratic influence on, our involvement in the European Union if we followed that sort of model. We can start on this European trade and investment agreement.

Today we are at the start of the negotiations on what could be a groundbreaking US-EU trade deal. We are at the start of the debates that this House will have and the scrutiny that we must offer of the Government’s contribution to those debates. This is the first such debate but—I hope and expect—certainly not the last.