Trade Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Kemi Badenoch and Faisal Rashid

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Badenoch]

Q Does anyone else want to come in on the make-up of the board, impartiality, timeliness, and so on?

Tony Burke: I think we would agree with everything that was said about the make-up of the board. It has to be wide-ranging and it has to have expertise. On the point you raised: when we put our evidence in from the Manufacturing Trade Remedies Alliance—industry and the unions—we wanted a system that worked. Don’t forget, we have not done this for a long, long time. We needed to make sure that we got it right. There were some folks’ voices saying, “Let’s have a fast-track. Look at America, it takes a long, long time”. We said, “No, if you do fast-track, you could get it wrong”. You need to have a system that works, step by step, but is widely consulted on, as has been said.

We may have problems in a particular industry, where we have to bring expertise in and we need to have people in that discussion at the remedies authority who know exactly what they are talking about and are able to demonstrate it. They can be very complex. When we look at the US system, it takes a very long time and moves very slowly. We do not want to rush it, but we need something that works and is as wide as possible. As I said earlier, I do not think impartiality comes into it, providing there was oversight from Parliament.

[Faisal Rashid]

Q I understand there were 60,000 responses to the consultation. The trade White Paper was published the day after the consultation closed. I apologise if I am wrong, but I think you said earlier that you were quite comfortable with the process. Do you think it is practical and do you think the consultation feedback from the stakeholders has been taken into account?

Martin McTague: We believe it has been taken into account at this early stage, but a lot more consultation needs to take place. We have a position and we are developing that position on exactly how this will affect smaller businesses. At this stage, it is not a developed position.