Oral Answers to Questions

Lloyd Russell-Moyle Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is the potential inclusion of around 70 geographic indicators, 12 of which are from Wales—she is quite right—including Welsh beef, Welsh lamb, Welsh wine, cider, perry, Caerphilly cheese, Carmarthen ham and others. One of our key objectives is to be able to sell Welsh lamb into the United States—British lamb overall is not currently allowed into the United States—but we will be fighting to get an improvement in Welsh lamb exports around the globe.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

What recent progress she has made in securing the rollover of EU trade agreements with non-EU countries.

[The Secretary of State for International Trade (Elizabeth Truss)]

We have made good progress. In under two years, we have agreed trade deals with 52 countries, covering £146 billion of trade, accounting for 74% of the value of total trade with non-EU countries that we set out to secure agreements with.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

We learn from The Telegraph that the Minister has rejected the Ghana deal because it was a “a substantial departure” from the EU deal, but she says that the Japan deal goes far beyond the EU deal. What is it? Are the Government exercising new British sovereignty to produce far-reaching new deals, or are they just rolling over and accepting the same deals that we already had?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The answer to the hon. Gentleman is that we are seeking to roll over the Ghana deal, as we are other deals, but with Japan, we have gone through the process of producing a scoping assessments. [Interruption.] No, we were very clear that Japan was a deal that would go further and faster than the EU deal, alongside the new deals that we are negotiating with the US, Australia and New Zealand. There is a deal on the table for Ghana to agree to. It has already agreed to the same deal with the EU. There should be no block on Ghana being able to get tariff-free, quota-free access to the UK, and we are very happy to talk to its representatives at any time of the day or night.