Trade Bill (Sixth sitting)

Lee Rowley Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Bill Esterson]

The hon. Gentleman may want to withdraw that comment. I am not sure whether it was a bit close to the mark, but I know it has not gone over the mark; otherwise, you would have pulled him up, Sir Graham. The problem with what the hon. Member has just said is that the defect levels handbook says that US producers are allowed to include up to 30 insect fragments in a 100g jar of peanut butter.

[Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Bill Esterson]

The hon. Gentleman needs to get used to the idea that when someone takes an intervention, they have to answer that intervention before they take another one.

US producers are also allowed to include 11 rodent hairs in a 25g container of paprika, and 3mg of rat or mouse droppings per pound of ginger. There are similar rules for cocoa beans, cornmeal, ginger, oregano and spices. I will give way if the hon. Member wants to tell me that is not what is in the defect levels handbook.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

I am happy to explain what I think is the case. Those are the thresholds at which the United States undertakes automatic prosecution against companies. They are not, as he is describing, the thresholds for what the US necessarily accepts in its domestic food production. That is a misrepresentation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Witney suggested. If the Labour party wants to have a mature and open discussion about trade in the future, given that we have just got these competencies back from the European Union for the first time in 40 years, it would do well to acknowledge those key and important nuances, which it is currently glossing over.

[Bill Esterson]

What is interesting about that intervention is that the hon. Member is right to say there are prosecutions above those thresholds, because it is illegal to cross them. However, US producers are legally allowed up to those thresholds, which is one of the reasons why food poisoning is such a problem in the United States. The difference between the United States, the EU and the UK is that we do not allow any of them. We have zero thresholds in this country, and I want that to continue. I am sure that everybody in the Committee wants that to continue, but unless we take action to provide safeguards in the event of international trade negotiations, there is a threat that such changes can be implemented.

We heard oral evidence from the NFU and have received written evidence from the RSPCA and the British Poultry Council to back up what I have just said. British and European standards are the highest in the world.

Trade Bill (Fourth sitting)

Lee Rowley Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 18th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Bill Esterson]

That is my understanding. I heard a reaction from one Member on the Government Benches that suggested that they did not agree with the assertion that there was a bias against the north. I represent a constituency very near to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North. I am glad that our mutual hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West raised that point, because one of the reasons given to firms in my constituency was that they were too far from London. I am afraid that that is what has been said by procurement officials in Government, and that cannot be right. My hon. Friend is right to raise the matter, and he is right that it has to be one of the answers. It covers the environmental aspects of amendment 25 and the small business and economic requirements of amendment 26, as well as those under amendment 27.

[Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)]

I hate to break up the party, but as a fellow northern MP I do not recognise anything that has been stated with regard to this issue, which is slightly broader than the scope of the discussion. However, given that we are on it, I would be very interested in getting more details from the hon. Members for Sefton Central and for Warrington North about why they think that their companies are being affected in that way. The companies in my constituency have not had the same experience.

[Bill Esterson]

I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents’ companies have been successful in contracting with the Government, but the fact remains that in the experience of my hon. Friend for Warrington North, and in mine, that is what has happened.

[Lee Rowley]

May we have the documents? I would be very grateful to receive them separately, so that I can see the issues. I am sure that we are all extremely concerned about the things that are being asserted with regard to northern constituents and northern firms being unable to access those kinds of contracts. I would be very keen to see the written information.

[Bill Esterson]

The hon. Gentleman will know that commercial confidentiality would mean that I would have to ask first.

[Lee Rowley]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Bill Esterson]

No, not yet, because I have not finished answering the hon. Gentleman’s first question. He really needs to wait, rather than intervene. We can certainly discuss the point further. I have raised it at length with officials and with the Ministers’ colleagues, and it needs to be addressed. It may well be that officials were speaking out of turn. I am prepared to believe that, and I have not made a big issue out of it previously. The bigger point is that we are losing out on expertise, and we have lost out on the potential during this crisis for better procurement and supply of PPE and, in the case of the firm in America, of testing capacity and capability. That is not sensible and it is not where we need to be. I am happy to discuss the matter with the hon. Gentleman later, but I suggest that we move on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

Given that we are discussing this, I would just like to declare an interest as a former employee of the Co-op, so I look forward to more such discussions.

[Gareth Thomas]

There was once a Conservative Co-op movement, which in practice had only one member. Richard Balfe left our ranks, in a very misguided move, and set up the Conservative Co-op group. We appear to have three potential new members of such an organisation, which would be fantastic. Membership of the all-party parliamentary group for mutuals is definitely on offer to the three hon. Members who have intervened.

Trade Bill

Lee Rowley Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate. Over the past three months, our primary focus has been coronavirus and the challenge we face on a national and local level. It is right that we have spent a huge amount of time, effort and focus on coronavirus. At the same time, if we do not prepare as parliamentarians for the future beyond coronavirus, whenever that terrible disease eventually moves on, and if we do not spend time thinking through how we reshape the world and take advantage of the opportunities that will come, we are not doing our jobs adequately.

One of the big jobs is ensuring that we have the right foreign policy, trade policy and international trade policy. That is why I welcome the opportunity to debate this Bill. I do not share the criticisms from Members that we are not giving the Bill adequate scrutiny or that now is not the time to make these decisions. I do not claim to be an expert in international trade, but in some ways, we do not need to be experts in international trade to welcome a Bill that, at its heart, perpetuates the principle that I hope most people in this place stand for: free trade.

Free trade is one of those principles and ideologies that is not much talked about other than as a negative, but actually, it has significantly improved our lot domestically over many centuries. Vitally, it has also improved the lot of so many people across the world, ensuring that so many people are lifted out of poverty and giving us so many opportunities. Yet Members on the Opposition Benches focus on the challenges or disadvantages of it.

We as parliamentarians suffer the quagmire—the fog—of special interest groups, who are perpetually rent-seeking when it comes to these Bills. We suffer the white noise of groups such as 38 Degrees who seek to spam us in ways that misinterpret and offer misinformation about the reality of what we are trying to do.

It is free trade that has partly been responsible for the reduction in absolute poverty by more than half since 1990. It is free trade that contributed to the magnificent growth of economies around the world, such as those in South Korea and Germany, out of the ruins of war 50 or 60 years ago. We should stand up for the opportunities that free trade offers.

This is not a paean to free trade on just a principled or conceptual basis. Free trade presents demonstrable opportunities for people in my constituency and constituencies across the country. It supports jobs in places like Clay Cross, where people go to work every day in highly skilled factories to export goods across the world. It supports entrepreneurs who see new opportunities and new markets around the world for their ideas, so that they can grow their businesses in places like Dronfield and Eckington. Bluntly, it supports us all in our old age, because we put money into pensions that grow by investing in companies that use free trade to satisfy demand, move goods around the world and ensure that, ultimately, people get the things they need. I do not just support free trade from a principled perspective; I support it because it helps North East Derbyshire and every single other constituency in this country.

We also need to support free trade and Bills such as this because of the opportunities that will come in the next few decades. We will have to get over the challenges caused by coronavirus in the next few years. Opening up markets, seeking to obtain deals across the world and seeking to roll over, as the Bill does, existing deals and enhance them where possible are exactly the kind of opportunities we need to take as we rebuild our country after the grave difficulties that were so unexpected in the last three months or so.

Free trade does not mean a free-for-all. It means the opportunity to build fair and equitable trade for all of us. Ultimately, free trade and the legislative framework that supports it give us and our constituents the opportunity to build better lives and to offer that to people across the world. It is something I celebrate, and I hope that the majority of people in this House do the same.