EU: Free Trade Agreements

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livingston of Parkhead]

Indeed, the Indian agreement would be of great benefit. Of course, India is one of the major powers and is growing fast. However, as we know from our debates in this House, there are challenges with internal Indian beliefs on trade and there are elections in India in, I believe, April this year. Discussions are ongoing, and I believe there will be discussions in Davos with the Indian trade Minister regarding progress on this agreement. We will certainly be pushing the Indian Government for a wide-ranging agreement, but whether that will be feasible this side of the Indian election is extremely doubtful.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

Will the EU-US prospective trade agreement as currently envisaged continue to allow the United States to ban the export of crude oil or natural gas, as they do at the present time?

[Lord Livingston of Parkhead]

The discussions are still ongoing. Clearly, we would like to see free trade of all descriptions, but the TTIP agreement will be largely focused on reducing import tariffs and particularly on the convergence of rules, which will help all countries. We would certainly like to see its energy exports being made available all around the world, as is the case with UK exports from the North Sea.