Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [Lords]

John McDonnell Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 29th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I will raise three issues: the scrutiny process, ISDS and my ongoing concerns about the impact of the measures.

I am a member of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. I am the sole Committee member present in the Chamber because the others are on a delegation to Berlin at the moment—I am sure that they are working hard at this time of night, and not having a dinner. As has been mentioned, we published our report today; it is a comprehensive report, agreed by all parties. We have been looking at the overall parliamentary scrutiny process for treaties and free trade agreements and, to be frank, we have unanimously found that the current process is unfit for purpose.

At the moment, Parliament—I do not disparage the Government for this; it has happened consistently in the past—is treated as an afterthought in trade policy. We have not been able to find any meaningful mechanism by which Parliament can influence the negotiating objectives at the beginning of the overall process or oversee negotiations as they proceed, and we are never guaranteed a vote on the final agreement at the end of the process—a point that has been made on a number of occasions by Members across the House.

That contrasts with what happens in other legislatures, particularly the US Congress, where legislators play an incredibly proactive role. I do not think the Government should see the parliamentary process as an imposition with regard to future treaties, but as a method of improving the trade negotiations by allowing Members of Parliament to have an early and ongoing voice in those discussions. It is interesting that other Members—including the former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice)—made exactly the same point during a debate in this House on the Australia free trade agreement, way back in November 2022. The right hon. Gentleman set out how during talks with Japan, the Japanese negotiators used parliamentary motions that their Government could not breach to protect their country’s interests.

People will see from the report that we have put forward a fairly comprehensive process by which the House can efficiently and effectively engage itself in such negotiations, with a sifting committee and a scrutiny committee. The House would always have the right to a vote at the end of the day, but more importantly, it would have an influence at the beginning of the negotiations when the overall objectives are set. The proposed process is part of an overall attempt to create greater transparency and, indeed, greater interest within the House in trade negotiations. I hope that the Government will take the Select Committee report away and come back with a positive response, because it contains some very constructive recommendations.

I now turn to the much discussed investor-state dispute settlement procedure. In debates in recent years, Members from across the House have expressed concern about the investor-state dispute mechanism, and those concerns have moved into the mainstream—not just in this country, but in other countries that are moving away from that system. As we have heard, Australia and New Zealand have committed to exclude the ISDS procedure from future trade agreements on the basis that in many instances, that procedure is not in the public interest. I cite the energy charter treaty. That has been the biggest vehicle for ISDS claims, and it is collapsing, with France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and others withdrawing. President Biden has now come out and criticised the ISDS procedures, and has basically excluded them from any future US trade agreements.

As the Minister knows, I have raised this matter in the House a number of times. I am sometimes perplexed: we are told that the Government are committed to the ISDS process, but on the other hand, they have acceded to both Australia and New Zealand exempting themselves from that process with regard to the UK. The last time I raised this issue, the Minister responded by saying—exactly as the Chair of the Business and Trade Select Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), noted—that the UK has never been successfully challenged under ISDS. That is true, but there is an element of hubris in that position.

[Liam Byrne]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and he is absolutely right to flag this issue. The UK Government have not hitherto been successfully challenged under ISDS, but for the first time, countries with very significant foreign direct investment into the UK are involved in this treaty. The figure for Canada alone is $56 billion. When it came to Japan—the other big investor—ISDS was excluded from the UK-Japan bilateral investment treaty. We need an awful lot more reassurance from the Government on this point, given the scale of investment from countries such as Canada in our country in general, but in sectors such as the water industry in particular.

[John McDonnell]

I do not know how excellent my speech is—I will just ramble on as usual, I think.

The argument that was put to me by the Minister responding today, the right hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands), was that if we cannot trust Canada in these deals, who can we trust? That is precisely the point, though: Canada will now have a parallel system, and Canadian firms will be able to take legal action in their own country. As a result of that statement by the Minister, I went away and had a look at the figures for Canadian firms under this process, and those firms stand out as being particularly litigious. They have brought over 65 ISDS cases in recent years. I therefore think that there is a chilling effect, exactly as the Chair of the Select Committee said, which at the end of the day can have implications for the UK’s right to regulate. If a number of cases are waged against the UK, that may undermine our ability to act more freely when it comes to regulation of the water sector, and also policy development, particularly on issues around water and future public ownership.

Again, I have previously raised this matter with the Secretary of State. What I cannot completely understand is that at the same time that the UK Government are defending the ISDS process with regard to the CPTPP, in the negotiating process for the bilateral free trade agreement they set out a specific objective to exclude the provisions of the ISDS system. That is a contradiction, and the Government’s thinking on that matter has not yet been explained to me. As the Minister will also know, there is a remarkably broad range of concern about the ISDS: in October 2023, a letter was submitted to the Government—supported by 30 non-governmental organisations and trade unions and over 50 academics and legal professionals from both the UK and Canada—calling for the immediate negotiation of a side letter between the UK and Canada to disapply the ISDS provisions between the two countries. That is exactly what happened with regard to New Zealand and Australia, and for the life of me, I cannot understand why the Government have not gone down that path for this particular negotiation.

I also want to express some concerns that have been raised about environmental issues and about labour standards. The CPTPP includes a number of countries where abuses of labour rights are widespread. To give a few examples, independent trade unions are banned in Brunei and Vietnam, while forced labour has been widely documented in Malaysia in various pieces of research, and a number of CPTPP member states have not ratified some of the core International Labour Organisation conventions.

The protections for labour rights within the CPTPP are particularly weak: a member state can only challenge another member state over a failure to uphold labour rights if it can be demonstrated that such a failure affected trade, which is notoriously difficult to prove in such cases. The ineffectual nature of that chapter is demonstrated by the fact that since the agreement’s conclusion in 2018, no Government have challenged another for abusing rights. The TUC has described the risk of CPTPP making it

“easier for unethical companies and investors to do business with countries where it’s easier to exploit workers”—

a risk that it considers to be significant. I do not think we have addressed that issue sufficiently.

There are also concerns regarding standards in partner countries. For example, as has already been said, pesticide standards could be undermined. Some 119 pesticides that are banned in the UK are allowed for use in one or more CPTPP member states. Although accession to the CPTPP does not necessitate any lowering of UK standards in this regard, when the peers debated this issue, there were really practical questions about the sufficiency of the UK’s border testing regime in keeping banned substances out. Again, it is an issue that needs further consideration in more detail as we go through the whole process.

The issue has been raised—and I know that the Chair of the Select Committee said that this may well have been exaggerated or overestimated in some of the debates—that the UK has acceded to Malaysia’s demand to lower tariffs on palm oil to zero. I have to say that the evidence I have seen and the representations I have received from the Trade Justice Movement and others is that this is highly likely to increase palm oil exports and, with that, the risk of deforestation, which will serve to undermine indigenous and local community land rights and threaten natural habitats for species such as orangutans. We have seen the various research and the range of evidence mounting on this particular issue. Again, it was debated in the Lords in the context of the potential protections afforded by the UK forest risk commodities legislation, under section 17 of the Environment Act 2021, but it is unclear when these regulations will actually come into effect, and therefore many believe that the protections are not in place at this stage.

There is also a view that accession to the CPTPP will bring risks of the erosion of preferences, under which current preferential trade agreements afforded to exporters in one country will bring negative development impacts on others. One example cited by the Trade Justice Movement is that Afruibana, the association representing banana exporters across Africa, has set out concerns regarding the potential impacts of tariff liberalisation in South and central America for those they represent.

Finally, one of the reports sent to me was a health impact assessment produced by Public Health Wales. It identified a range of diverse potential impacts, including the worsening of global air pollution due to transport distances for goods, the loss of employment for some population groups and, of course, the risk of ISDS cases being brought against regulations that seek to support public health outcomes. It is an important impact assessment that needs further scrutiny and examination. It leaves me with the impression overall that there has been a lack of impact assessments, so I look forward to the Select Committee report, which will go into further depths on this.

I come to the conclusion that, with all the risks involved and with such doubt surrounding the CPTPP, it will achieve what we could not even describe as a marginal economic gain over the length of time it will be in place, and I fear to tread on treaties and agreements of this sort. I just think that, although there is not going to be a vote tonight, I might be tempted at a later date to vote against the Bill—so I had better let the Labour Whips know that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Hands]

My hon. Friend is quite right. Of course, successive Secretaries of State have pursued that relationship, including the current Secretary of State, who is personally obviously very committed. I think that I have made two visits to Malaysia in my time as Trade Minister, and we are really excited about having a better trade relationship with Malaysia.

It seemed a logical move to join the CPTPP, as it included many of our global free trading cohort, including Japan, Australia and New Zealand, but it did not have the controversial aspects of free trade zones in Europe, such as free movement, financial contributions and dynamic alignment of rules. As the Secretary of State said, the agreement will grow. Joining the CPTPP will be great news for the UK as an independent trading nation, and for UK goods and services exporters. They include beverage producers in Scotland—I did not hear the SNP extolling that virtue—machinery manufacturers in Wales, and car manufacturers in Northern Ireland and the west midlands.

According to 2022 data, the UK is the world’s second largest services exporter—a point also raised by my hon. Friends on the Government Benches. Joining the CPTPP will help minimise unnecessary data flow barriers, empower UK services exporters and encourage inward financial investment—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey). Overall, it will provide us with a new presence in the wider Indo-Pacific region—a region of paramount geopolitical and economic importance, and one that is expected to account for 54% of global economic growth by 2050.

I warmly welcome the constructive comments made and the support from sectors across the country. In her opening speech, the Secretary of State quoted the president of the National Farmers Union and the director-general of the Institute of Export and International Trade. I would like to add just one more quote, from the Federation of Small Businesses. We had an intervention earlier about SMEs; the FSB said that it is

“very pleased to see the UK officially join”.

In FSB research, 45% of small exporters said that access to this market will be important for future growth.

Today we have heard a number of important points raised, and I will try to answer as many as possible in the time available. I remind the House of the specific purpose of the Bill: to enable the implementation of aspects of the CPTPP when the UK accedes, specifically relating to chapters on intellectual property, Government procurement and technical barriers to trade.

First of all, we heard from the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas), who gave us his familiar explication of how we are not doing enough trade deals, even though he has voted against every single one of the deals that we have done. We heard about his attitude to Canada, and his faux outrage about the idea that there might be a weakening in the existing trade deal with Canada. We heard that from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) and the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). They also said that the Government are letting down people by not having an effective continuation of the Canada trade deal. We can differ on that, but the difference in the case of the hon. Member for Harrow West is that he voted against the Canada trade deal in the first place. He is now taking time to complain about the weakening of an agreement that he did not support from the very off.

On China, the hon. Member for Harrow West has been reminded about the Auckland principles, and that all countries acceding to the CPTPP must accede to the high standards of the agreement, have a history of conforming with trade agreements and command the consensus of the parties. The investor-state dispute settlement, which was also raised by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), is in the agreement, but I remind the House that the UK has never lost a case. The right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington called it hubristic to mention that, but it is a fact, and the agreement never prevents the right to regulate. On performers’ rights, raised by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green), the CPTPP is an existing agreement, and changes will have to be made.

[John McDonnell]

I have made this point on previous occasions, but I just want to understand the logic of the Government’s position of allowing the ISDS in this particular deal, but trying to avoid it in the free trade agreement with Canada.

[Greg Hands]

These are all matters for negotiation. What happens in one negotiation will not always be the same as what happens in another; it is impossible to compare them. I can say that we already have ISDS provisions with seven of the 11 CPTPP members.

[John McDonnell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Greg Hands]

I will not, because I am trying to respond to the right hon. Gentleman’s earlier points. On performers’ rights, raised by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham, we expect the practical impact to be small. The Intellectual Property Office is carrying out a consultation on how the provisions will be implemented.

My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) made a characteristically upbeat and excellent speech, pointing out that the region has £12 trillion in GDP, how the UK will be—and is—at the forefront of global trade, and how the deal will make no alteration to our standards.

From the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson), we heard a familiar tale of woe. He failed to stick up for Scotland and to point out all the trade benefits for Scotland. He said that he has been against every single UK trade deal, and that is correct, but he failed to mention that he has also been against every single EU trade deal that has ever been negotiated. He wishes to rejoin the EU and be subject to those very trade deals that he spent years campaigning against. He was against the Canada deal, the South Africa deal, the Japan deal, the Singapore deal and the Korea deal.

The hon. Member failed to mention the particular benefits to Scotland. He was wrong when he said that the GDP increase is £2 billion—it is £2 billion per annum. Then, he went down an extraordinary road of talking about eggs. Ninety per cent. of our egg consumption comes from domestic production. All eggs are subject to sanitary and phytosanitary checks, and from Wednesday, EU eggs will be, too, under the border target operating model. We have imported hardly any eggs at all from CPTPP countries since 2015. I think he mentioned eggs from Mexico, but there has been not a single import of an egg from Mexico since 2005. This is the most extraordinary scaremongering. The Trade and Agriculture Commission said:

“we found it was unlikely that eggs from CPTPP parties…would be imported into the UK”.

The hon. Member is sacrificing the interests of those selling Scotch whisky and other high-quality Scottish produce by starting scare stories about the importation of eggs, which are not coming to this country. He mentioned workers’ rights; I have already said that there is a comprehensive labour chapter.

The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, made a constructive speech. He said that the deal was good for farmers, good for whisky and had a good digital chapter. He is right that we are doing more trade deals— we are going further with Switzerland, Turkey, South Korea and others. He is right on the scale of the CPTPP and growth. On pesticides, there is no change to our right to regulate or to our import standards. We set the maximum limits on pesticides—there is no change to that.

The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham said that we already have deals with nine of the 11 members. Well, it depends on what is in the deal. As I pointed out in response to the intervention from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden), the existing deal with Mexico is very old—it goes back more than 20 years. The CPTPP is a very modern deal. We can get a lot more done with a very modern deal than with a deal that is many decades old. She complained about the lack of parliamentary scrutiny. There have been two oral statements, 16 written ministerial statements, and Ministers and officials have appeared before five Select Committees to give evidence on the CPTPP. That is a lot of parliamentary scrutiny over the years. On palm oil, the TAC said that it is unlikely that the CPTPP will lead to an increase in palm oil being grown on deforested land. We have had impact assessments galore, but I am happy to look at the public health assessment mentioned by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington.

Finally, we heard a speech from the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke), which was alarmist in its impact on farmers. The NFU supports the agreement. She described the “toxic tendrils” of the deal, and even blamed “insipid sandwiches” on this Tory Government. There are many things that I am not quite sure can be blamed on any Government, and the quality of sandwiches is going too far. She started verging into what sounded a little like conspiracy theories.

The Bill is the next step in the creation of the outward-looking and internationalist UK that we envisage for our country’s future. Through the UK’s accession to the CPTPP, the Government will place the UK at the centre of a modern, progressive and values-based partnership that spans the Americas and Asia, and which other economies are queueing up to join. It is the gateway to new business opportunities and greater consumer choice benefits that will be felt in every corner of the UK. While the legislation may be narrow, it is crucial to the UK’s ability to accede to the CPTPP. I therefore commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [Lords] (Programme)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),

That the following provisions shall apply to the Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [Lords]:

Committal

(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.

Proceedings in Public Bill Committee

(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 22 February 2024.

(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

Consideration and Third Reading

(4) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.

Other proceedings

(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Robert Largan.)

Question agreed to.

Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [Lords]

John McDonnell Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 19th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I agree. I was not so certain about this, so I looked at what Lord Lisvane, the one-time chief Clerk in the House, said about it. He produced a note on it, which I quote:

“The issue, as I recall, was whether a Motion to approve the PRC’s accession could be amended. Commons S.O. No 24B says that when a Motion in neutral terms (in the judgement of the Chair) is tabled, no amendments to it may be tabled. I think this would probably rule out seeking to amend a simple ‘take note’ or ‘has considered’ Motion.”

I want to emphasise that it is not true that a motion to take note can be amended—that was used in the other place as a defence. The CRaG process does not provide for a vote; it does not even guarantee a debate. That is why the new clause is needed.

Under UK trade policy, it is not unusual for bilateral trade agreements to be subject to parliamentary approval—free trade agreements are routinely subject to it. In response to criticism of the CRaG process in 2021, the Grimstone rule was established, whereby the Government agreed in principle to allow time to debate prospective FTAs where the International Agreements Committee has published a report. I happen to believe that there are Ministers who are keen and happy to have debates—I mention no names, but that is the case. However, I know that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office absolutely opposes them, because it hates to have any serious debates about its prerogative.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman is keen on debates. On that basis, I invite him to sign my prayer against this treaty, to urge the Government to give us a debate on the treaty as a whole.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I ask the right hon. Gentleman not to tempt me beyond my new clause. I always happy to look at this issue, and I believe in debate. It is vital, otherwise Governments are never held to account.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)]

I stand to speak to new clause 12, which stands in my name, and also to new clauses 11 and 13. I would like to begin by stating once again that the Liberal Democrats want to see an ambitious trade policy aimed at creating opportunities for British firms around the world and new jobs here in our country. The Bill and our accession to the CPTPP are a step in that direction. The point has been well made, in this House and in the other place, that the projections in the Government’s own impact assessment are for GDP growth of just 0.06% by 2040, so although the UK’s accession to the trading bloc can and should be welcomed, the cause for celebration is limited.

I would like to speak to three new clauses that aim to address some key issues with the Bill and the UK’s accession. New clause 12 would require the Government to publish an assessment of the impact of the CPTPP’s performers’ rights provisions. We know the worries of our creative industries surrounding the Bill. The lack of reciprocal agreements for UK artists in CPTPP countries leaves our creatives exposed. The UK is rightly proud of our world-leading creative industries and we should also be proud of a world-leading intellectual property regime. We must be sure that this Bill and this trade deal do nothing to jeopardise that. There is a need for clarity and certainty in this area, and that is why I tabled new clause 12, which I hope Members will support.

New clause 13 would require the Government to conduct a review examining how the implementation of the treaty affects the costs faced by exporting and importing businesses in the UK. That report would have to consider the existing costs that those businesses were already facing as a result of trade regulations. We know that the stated ambition of the Government is that the deal will minimise red tape and trade regulations when trading with other CPTPP countries, which is a welcome goal. However, the British Chambers of Commerce has found that almost two fifths of businesses list regulations and red tape as a significant barrier to exporting. We need to be assured that our businesses will be supported to trade and flourish. With that in mind, it will be worth while, after our accession, to take the time to assess how the deal and the wider trade regulation landscape are affecting British businesses. That is the purpose of new clause 13.

It is clear that the CPTPP will likely grow over time as new countries join and accede to the deal, which will bring new opportunities but may also pose risks. The potential accession of China is one example, and the concerns regarding that possibility have been well discussed by colleagues in this Chamber and the other place. New clause 11 would require the Government to provide an impact assessment on the accession of countries that have made, and will make, a formal request to join the CPTPP. This will allow us to have a clear and informed vision of what the accession of each new country would mean for the UK. I believe this would be a reasonable and common-sense measure.

I finish by echoing what has already been said about parliamentary scrutiny. It is welcome that we are having this debate today but, in reality, we are debating a very limited and narrow Bill. We need proper parliamentary scrutiny of trade deals, and I ask the Government to ensure that it happens in future.

[John McDonnell]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Damien Egan) on his excellent speech. He mentioned that he has been elected at the tail-end of a Government and that an election is coming soon. I reassure him that the diligence he has already demonstrated in this House and his constituency should secure his re-election. It is wonderful to hear a Member speaking for a constituency with its accent.

I will address amendment 2 and new clause 8, although I support virtually every amendment that has been tabled, which shows the weakness of the process by which we have examined this treaty. I have been involved in discussions with the Secretary of State and the Minister over a number of months on ISDS, and I am concerned about the contradiction between their refusal to secure a side letter with regard to this treaty and what happened with regard to Australia and New Zealand. The negotiating brief for the Canadian free trade agreement also had a specific remit to prevent an ISDS process. I have never got to the bottom of that contradiction.

Amendment 2 follows our lengthy debate about the scrutiny of treaties. I have not given notice to the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) that I will be referring to him in the Chamber, although I am not sure that we have to give notice ahead of praising, rather than criticising, another Member. I am a member of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which he chairs, and he has become the 21st-century Walter Bagehot, with a solid mixture of Trollope. He steered our discussions on the formal process for examining treaties with immense skill, drawing on a range of evidence that led to consensus—there is almost consensus in the Chamber at the moment—and this is what our report says:

“CRAG has been an insufficient legislative tool to facilitate meaningful Parliamentary scrutiny of treaties… the current legislation provides only a passive role for Parliament and as such there is no opportunity for Parliament to express its explicit approval or disapproval of a treaty.”

That is a common theme of all the debates. We have to do better than this.

Having read the report, the worry is that the Government have not responded positively by trying to get some order, particularly on the early negotiating processes and the debates that should take place. The Committee’s general view on this treaty, like the others, is that Parliament has been largely bypassed. We were offered no say on the Government’s negotiating objectives at the earliest stage, which is important, and no oversight of the negotiations as they progressed. Now we are refused a vote on the final terms of accession. This is not acceptable as a democratic process. The formal CRaG period, under which we can nominally have a say on the agreement, concludes this Friday, after a 21-day period. We are offered no vote or even a debate on the substantive terms of the CPTPP during this period, and accession is likely to receive our consent without any of us being given a single vote.

As I mentioned to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), I have tabled a prayer to try to secure a time extension to enable the Government to bring forward time for a debate. My view is exactly the same as his: we are debating a narrow, technical, implementing Bill and that is no substitute for a confirmatory debate and vote on the accession itself. I agree with the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, who has raised this issue with the Government in correspondence over the past two weeks. It is preposterous for the Government then to say with a straight face that there is not parliamentary time to have such a debate, given our current sitting arrangements. Those who have been here for as long as me, or perhaps even longer, will know that there has not been a problem on parliamentary time in the past, as we have simply found the time and sat and gone through the business when it is so important.

My amendment 2 seeks to address that wrong by formalising a requirement for the Government to ask for Parliament’s consent for the UK’s accession to the CPTPP. That is a basic democratic point of principle. If the Government do not accept that, I come back to the urgings of Members from across the House and say that I hope the Government will take seriously the recommendations of the PACAC report for reform of the process overall. We are dealing with an undemocratic structure. The PACAC report’s incredibly practical proposals are for a sifting process, a sifting Committee, the identification of treaties that require longer consideration and giving the House itself a proper process of democratic scrutiny and democratic decision.

I shall deal briefly with new clause 8, which stands in my name and deals with the labour chapter of the CPTPP. I have raised this issue before, and the point has been made by a number of colleagues, the TUC, in particular, and various other campaigning organisations throughout this ratification process. The labour provisions of the CPTPP are outdated and inadequate. This treaty will include a number of countries, some of which have been mentioned, with the prospect of others joining, where abuses of labour rights are widespread. Putting in place effective labour provisions is therefore vital in any treaty we undertake.

That view has been expressed across the House for a number of years now, but let me give some examples. In Brunei and Vietnam, independent trade unions are banned—they are not allowed legally to operate. In Malaysia, which has been mentioned in our previous debates, forced labour has been documented extensively. That issue has been raised in this House time and again.

In that context, it is crucial that the CPTPP’s labour provisions are readily enforceable and are linked to the removal of trade preferences, to ensure that membership does not lead to a race to the bottom on labour standards, exactly as the right hon. Gentleman said. I agree with him on the fear about China, because union colleagues of mine from Hong Kong, whom I have worked with for decades, are in prison at the moment purely and simply because they are trade unionists and have stood up for democratic rights.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

The point I was trying to make is that there is also an economic issue here. If China practises slave or forced labour, as it does on a wide scale, it undercuts all the reasonable labour. One good example is that the UK is desperately trying to get more solar arrays, but the polysilicon that is critical to those is mined in Xinjiang under slave labour conditions. No wonder everybody else is undercut, but we still pay for this.

[John McDonnell]

It is a point of economic principle that such things will occur if we do not have proper rights or regulations installed, or the appropriate sanctions when anything takes place. At the moment, those are not contained in the treaty. One member state can challenge another for failing to uphold labour rights, but, as we have seen time and again across various treaties, it is notoriously difficult to prove that such failure has affected trade. To challenge those labour practices, we have to demonstrate the effect on trade, but, under current provisions, that is almost impossible to do.

The International Trade Union Confederation has rightly pointed to the ability of states to buy their way out of issues via dispute settlement, as the amount of compensation has been calculated time and again as a fraction of the violation’s impact on trade. So the sanctions do not work, and they will not work under this treaty.