(5 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
I thank my hon. Friend for her question, and as we have already discussed, there is plainly some very real inconsistency in the Opposition position. I point out to my hon. Friend that the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Mr Leslie) is a champion of free trade and actually spoke in this House in the debates on the EU-Japan EPA and CETA back in June, when I have to say he voted with the Government and, indeed, for the deals in that case, unlike his Front Benchers.
Businesses, including one in my constituency, are already moving operations to mainland Europe because of doubts about whether they will have market access to places such as South Korea. There are hints that we will focus on the higher value trade agreements and at least get them in place come Brexit day. However, if an SME’s trade is with one of the smaller countries, that is every bit as important for it and for the people it employs as the trade deal with South Korea. We need all 40 in place, and the Minister did assure us that that would happen. Has he not completely let down those people?
We have staff in post in all the markets where we are attempting to transition these deals. An enormous amount of internal resource has been applied to what we in the Department call TAC—trade agreement continuity. Indeed, we have taken resource out of parts of the other workstreams we do to concentrate on exactly this issue. We have been negotiating on all these agreements, not just the larger ones. There is of course a financial incentive to concentrate on the larger ones, for the sake of our own businesses and for the sake of employees and families who want to put food on their table. At the same time, however, there are small businesses, as I know perfectly well, that trade under the preferences enjoyed through EPAs. There are also developmental reasons why we want to continue those arrangements, because it is the right thing to do, and the hon. Lady may be reassured that we are putting effort into all these agreements.
(5 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberWe discuss matters with other countries on a case-by-case basis. None of them has said to us that they do not want to continue to have an agreement with the United Kingdom; that is entirely understandable, as we are the world’s fifth biggest economy. Where we are able to translate elements into a bilateral context, we are doing so. We are working through those agreements. We are making good progress, and I will report to the House as and when each of them is signed.
I add my Christmas wishes to you, Mr Speaker.
Both issues have been covered recently in discussions with World Trade Organisation members. For example, agricultural global value chains were considered at the recent G20 trade and investment working group. As a supporter of the rules-based multilateral trading system, we believe that WTO members must continually look for ways of strengthening the system.
I understand that a number of important WTO member states have objected to the UK and EU splitting tariff rate quotas post Brexit. At the end of October, the Secretary of State announced that the UK would be entering into general agreement on tariffs and trade negotiations. Is that another illustration of the fact that we cannot unilaterally negotiate trading arrangements post Brexit with other countries, and that it requires agreement? It looks like it will be an incredibly lengthy and tortuous process that will not have quick results.
The hon. Lady will know that the vast majority of nations represented in the WTO accepted the deposit of our schedules. Some did not and we are entering article 28 negotiations with them, as is completely normal. We can trade on those schedules as deposited until then—the European Union has been trading on uncertified schedules since 1995, so it should not impede our trade. Yes, negotiations will continue to agree those tariff rate quotas.
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for promoting me momentarily. She is right: sport can have an enormously positive impact on people’s lives. Obviously in the context of domestic abuse and serious violence, we are very conscious that sport can be a great way to reach out to young people and help them to make positive life choices. I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I understand, too, that there are plans for a parliamentary netball team, which I will not volunteer for—I am more of a hockey player—but I am sure that is something to look forward to in the new year.
We are very conscious of the additional pressures women in the asylum system face, particularly if they are in the system through family visas, where, sadly, we know there are cases where the perpetrators of the violence are the people on whom they rely for their asylum status. UK Visas and Immigration has set up a safeguarding hub to look at whether urgent intervention is necessary in each asylum case, and that obviously includes domestic abuse. We are concentrating on this in the forthcoming package of domestic abuse measures.
(5 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberIt is unfortunate, as was shown by the previous vote, that the Labour party always puts politics ahead of the interests of ordinary people working in the automotive industry across this country. We are seeing more and more investment in this country, with the announcement of a major investment by McLaren in Sheffield only yesterday. Let us not play politics. Let us get the deal over the line and protect our growing and strong automotive industry.
My ministerial colleagues and I regularly meet our counterparts from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to discuss a range of issues. When it comes to products imported to the UK, quality, safety and performance will continue to be paramount. Without exception, imports must meet all the relevant UK product rules and regulations.
We have heard quite a few times this morning that there will be no lowering of standards when it comes to imports under future trade deals, but the Government rejected an amendment to the Trade Bill to include a non-regression clause. Will they now support an amendment to the Agriculture Bill, which we will be discussing in Committee later today, that would allow for the same so that we can be sure that our food and our safety standards are protected?
I have noted some of the discussions on the Agriculture Bill, which I read earlier today, and I have noted the discussions on this. I have to say, and the hon. Lady should take some real encouragement from this fact, that the standards on these issues in the UK are already higher than they are in the EU. That, I think, should give the House confidence as to the UK’s intention on this. I will repeat one more time: there is absolutely no intention that the Government will reduce their standards in this area.
The hon. Lady raises a very important point. It was one of the points we considered at the World Trade Organisation meeting of Trade Ministers in Buenos Aires. We looked at a study showing that of companies that trade only offline, four out of five are owned or run by men. Of those that run only online, four out of five are run or owned by women. This indicates that e-commerce is one of the prime development tools that we can use. The liberalisation of e-commerce and creating a global network of regulation is therefore one of the best ways we can combine trade and development policy, specifically to help women experience the benefits of the global economy.
My Department is responsible for foreign and outward direct investment, establishing an independent trade policy and export promotion. Later today, the Board of Trade will meet in Wales for the first time in history, jointly hosted by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales. As the President of the Board of Trade, I can today announce a £240 million investment drive in Wales, which will create thousands of jobs. The Board of Trade will also today announce the launch of the UK’s first energy investment portfolio, worth an estimated £5 billion.
Exporting companies in my constituency have told me that the Trade Secretary actually asked to meet them, but on condition that they did not discuss Brexit. Even more ludicrously, the Brexit Secretary—not the one who has just resigned, but the one who resigned before that—also said he wanted to meet them, but on the same condition. It is only £1 to go over Clifton suspension bridge from the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency into Bristol. If I offer to pay that quid for him, will he come to Bristol and tell our exporting companies what the hell is going on?
The companies in Bristol seem to know already what is going on, without requiring any contribution from the hon. Lady—financial or otherwise. They are not only creating huge numbers of jobs, but are among the best export hubs in the whole of the United Kingdom, showing excellence in whole areas from the creative industries to aerospace. She need not worry too much.
(6 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberOne of the main problems with India, of course, is the tariff that it applies on whisky. We have been involved in a trade review with India for some months now, and part of the process is to look at the areas where we require liberalisation to bring our two economies close enough to be able to consider a free trade agreement. The high tariff applied on Scotch whisky by India is one of the impediments, and we continue to urge them to reduce that.
Since the draft withdrawal agreement confirms that international agreements continue to apply to the UK during the implementation period, common rules of origin will remain until the end of 2020. We are keen, of course, to avoid disruption to supply chains, so we are working to secure continuity after this.
I am sure the Minister has met motor manufacturers who have warned that they will simply not be able to meet the 60% local content requirement under rules of origin if EU components cannot be included. At present, the UK content is between about 40% and 44%. How will the Minister address that?
I think the hon. Lady is referring to the EU’s current set of more than 40 agreements with more than 70 counterparts. That is a matter for active discussions. We are obviously trying to secure the best possible deal for UK motor manufacturers, not only those involved with the finished product but those who provide the components, as part of our talks with third parties.
(6 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberOur exports are largely determined by the growth of markets, and the International Monetary Fund says that 90% of global growth in the next 10 to 15 years will be outside the European continent. That is where the big possibilities for UK exporters are, including in food and drink.
The Minister’s colleagues are fond of talking about pork markets in China, but I urge him to pay attention to the potential pulses market there. The British Edible Pulses Association is keen to export faba beans to China, but the Department for International Trade is not talking to the BEPA at the moment. The Chinese want these beans, but there are some technical obstacles. I urge the Minister to respond to the correspondence and let us get this pulses market moving.
(6 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberI believe that the Bill is unnecessary; that we should be seeking to stay in the customs union and the single market; and that we are better off in a union with no tariffs or quotas, as well as with the elimination of non-tariff barriers.
The EU market accounts for nearly 50% of our total trade, and trade under EU agreements with third countries, including the likes of Canada and South Korea, comprises a further 13%. Last month, the EU-Japan trade agreement was finalised, and the EU is starting to open negotiations with both Australia and New Zealand. We would benefit from all those agreements if we were to remain in the customs union.
I chair the all-party group on agroecology, which launched its report into post-Brexit trade at the Oxford real farming conference last week. The report sets out the importance of the EU for our food, feed and drinks market. In 2016, 60% of UK exports in those sectors were to the EU, compared with just 16% to Asia and 14% to North America. The picture is even starker for imports: 70% from the EU, compared with just 8% and 6% from Asia and North America.
Currently, we negotiate as a bloc of 500 million consumers in a market renowned for its high standards. After Brexit, we could be negotiating from a much-diminished position, and I have to say that, on our current record, we are not very good in this area. In January 2008, Gordon Brown announced a deal to sell pigs’ trotters to China, following years of complex negotiations. In November 2017, nearly 10 years later, Meat Management magazine—I am an avid reader, as hon. Members can imagine—reported that the UK had finally got the go-ahead to start shipping those trotters out to China. This followed a lengthy process of technical negotiations led by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board in collaboration with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Food Standards Agency and others, as well as inspections of UK facilities by the Chinese authorities. That example shows that it took 10 years just to get the pigs’ trotters protocol off the ground. Imagine how long it will take to negotiate comprehensive trade agreements covering more than that.
There are a few general points of concern that I want to raise about our future trading relationships and the way in which trade deals and rules can affect people involved in the sectors in which I am interested. In 2014, I visited El Salvador to look at the impact of climate change on its farmers. I was told how its Government’s efforts to promote native seeds and more traditional, organic forms of farming had been thwarted because following the central America free trade agreement, they were unable to stop Monsanto peddling its wares. That raises concerns in my mind about what will happen when products come on the market that we do not have the power to reject post deal, even if we manage to carve out concessions when we negotiate trade agreements now.
The North American free trade agreement is held responsible for the tripling of obesity in Mexico, as fast food companies came in and flooded the market with high fructose corn syrup. To give a quite obscure example, the republic of Samoa has among the highest rates of obesity, hypertension and diabetes in the world. In 2007, in a bid to combat that public health crisis, its Government banned the imports of two favourite delicacies: turkey tails from the US and mutton flaps from New Zealand. But when Samoa joined the WTO in 2012, it had to lift that ban. A deal was struck that allowed it to add a 300% tariff to turkey tails for two years, and then a 100% tariff for one more year on top of that. After that, Samoa was told that its only mechanism was to resort to public health education. The lack of freedom that countries have under current trading arrangements concerns me.
Perhaps many Members here think that the people of the republic of Samoa should not be deprived of their freedom to eat deep-fried turkey tails, if that is what they really want to do, but the broader point is that if the United Kingdom is taking back control, we should be able to decide. We should set standards for what we want to import into this country. It is not about protectionism; it is about ethics, the economy and the type of sustainable and healthy society we want. That makes it all the more important that we have full scrutiny of not just the trade deals covered by the Bill that we are seeking to carry over—they cannot possibly be exactly replicated—but future trade deals. As it stands, MEPs and members of other EU countries’ national Parliaments will have more influence than we will, and it is not just national Parliaments. After all, it was the regional representatives in the Parliament of Wallonia who blocked the CETA deal.
The European Parliament does not have a formal role in EU treaty negotiations with third countries, but it is kept
“immediately and fully informed at all stages of the procedure”,
because its consent is often required. For example, it voted against the proposed anti-counterfeiting trade agreement in 2012.
The Library’s useful briefing on the Bill states that there are four ways that Parliaments can be involved in treaties:
“Setting the negotiating mandate…Scrutinising negotiations… Approving or objecting to ratification…Passing implementing legislation”.
Yet the Bill only deals with the fourth of those points. The Government plan to limit Parliament’s role on such agreements by taking powers through secondary legislation, with only the negative procedure available to Members. The Government should heed the advice of the Institute for Government, the Trade Justice Movement and others, and include in the Bill a guarantee that all future trade deals will be subject to a full debate and vote in this place.
Parliament should have the right to set a thorough mandate for each trade negotiation. We should have the right to amend and reject trade deals and the ability to review them and withdraw from them in a timely manner if we think it is in our interests to do so. We should be able to consider the need for environmental protections or human rights clauses in agreements and to seek reassurance about how they would be enforced. This is too important to be left to the say-so of Ministers. We already know about the spats that have occurred in Cabinet between the International Trade Secretary, who is all in favour of chlorinated chicken, and the Environment Secretary, who has said the United States would have to “kiss goodbye” to a trade deal if it wanted to include chlorinated chicken.
The Americans, meanwhile, are telling us that we must adhere to their rules and not set our own standards. Wilbur Ross, the US Secretary of Commerce, has said that the UK must ditch EU food safety laws. Last week at the Oxford farming conference, Ted McKinney, the US Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs, said that the UK should consider the “reset button” on our food standards. There are many examples other than chlorinated chicken, including hormone-injected beef, food colourings and brominated vegetable oil. I make the plea for proper scrutiny; we must not let this be only in the hands of Ministers.
(6 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberI will have to get back to the hon. Gentleman on the exact figures, but he is absolutely right to highlight the fact that we need to do more to promote this opportunity for SMEs to get this high street financing through UK Export Finance. To that end, in the Budget, we have allocated an advertising budget in order to be able to promote UK Export Finance.
Some 99% of UK Export Finance spending on energy goes on the most polluting fuels. Does the Minister consider that his Department is exempt from the Government’s commitments under the Paris climate change treaty?
It is perfectly reasonable that the whole Government adhere to the objectives of all the agreements we have undertaken, so no Department would go against any of that. However, I would also point out that we are undertaking financing for offshore wind farms, so we are actually helping to build more carbon-neutral capacity.
(6 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe Department for International Trade is devoting significant efforts to transitioning the EU’s existing FTAs into a UK FTA. We are doing this in consultation with the European Union. In the majority of countries—certainly all those that we have spoken to so far—third parties are in agreement with that. Just two weeks ago I was in Peru, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was in Colombia, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State met the Ecuadorian Trade Minister to talk about the transition of the EU/Andean FTA—a perfect example in this space.
I discussed the UK’s independent membership of the WTO with the US trade representative Robert Lighthizer when I visited the US in July, and I have had several productive conversations with the WTO director general Roberto Azevêdo, most recently on my visit to Geneva in July.
I understand that Britain and the EU have now formally informed WTO members of how they would like quotas to be split after Brexit, but the Trump Administration and seven WTO members have already rejected the proposals. What will the Secretary of State do to ensure that a deal on quotas is achieved?
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving me the chance to explain our methodology. We decided to split the quotas that we have up to now shared with the EU on a market basis. In other words, we would not divide by 28 or by 15, but by the UK’s share of a market. We did that to avoid disadvantaging exporters from other countries, as well as our own producers or consumers. That is the best route to avoid disputes in Switzerland.
(7 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberThe usual channels will have heard my hon. Friend’s view. As I have made clear, I have no objection to such a Committee being in place. It is a balanced judgment as to whether we have such a Committee or not. As I said, any Committee that looks into the probity of Ministers’ decisions should be welcomed by Ministers as well as by the House as a whole.
In 2013, the Government launched their action plan on business and human rights with great fanfare, but subsequent questions by me and others revealed that it appears to be little more than a piece of paper. It is certainly not an action plan. How does that supposed action plan inform our business relationship with Saudi Arabia, and how will it inform that relationship after this judgment?
It will not be affected by the judgment because the judgment said that the Government had a rigorous, responsible and rational view of decisions on defence exports. I would have thought the House would be pleased that our systems are working so transparently and so well.
(7 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberMy hon. Friend makes a very valid point, and of course it is not just about exports; it is also about inward investment. Therefore, let me bring the House up to date by saying that at 9.30 this morning we published figures showing that a record-breaking number of foreign direct investment projects came into the UK in 2016-17—2,265—safeguarding nearly 108,000 jobs or creating new jobs in the UK. No doubt, the usual suspects will describe this by saying, “despite Brexit”.
T7. I thank the Ministers for the written answers they have given me this week on the EU-Japan free trade agreement. They were at pains to reassure me that existing animal welfare and environmental standards would be maintained, but can they give me further reassurance that we will use this as an opportunity to address with Japan the illegal timber trade and commercial whaling?
We engage on these issues on an ongoing basis with Japan. I know this is very important to the hon. Lady, so may I reassure her that the Government share a lot of her concerns on protecting animal welfare in free trade agreements? The UK has one of the best scores on the world animal protection index, where we are in the top four. It is important that we maintain animal welfare standards in this country in future agreements, and I have every confidence that we will.