Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

We follow RCEP quite closely, but we are looking forward to making our application to join the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, or TPP-11, trading group in the new year. This is an excellent trading group. Its 11 countries are a mix of like-minded western trading nations such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, as well as more developing nations such as Vietnam and Peru. There are great opportunities for all of us, including my hon. Friend’s Morley and Outwood businesses.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

There are reports that the Government plan to remove anti-dumping duties on imported bicycles at the end of transition, leading to a flood of cheap imports from China, which would be devastating for UK bike manufacturers. Can the Minister tell me what proportion of the domestic market consists of bikes made in the UK and confirm that if it is more than 1%, anti-dumping duties should remain?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mr Ranil Jayawardena)]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question, which is important, because we must apply anti-dumping measures in a clear and accurate way. The Department has assessed which of the existing anti-dumping trade remedies should be transitioned, and evidence has been provided by British producers of bicycles, which thus far has indicated that there are not sufficient British sales to transition the measure, but we will review any further information. That information would need to demonstrate that the British market share of British-based producers of the product in question was above 1%.