Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the (1) economic, and (2) environmental, benefits arising from the Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023; and what plans they have to communicate those benefits to relevant stakeholders, including small and medium-sized enterprises.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare my financial services and technology interests as set out in the register.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Scotland Office (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)]

The Electronic Trade Documents Act will provide an economic boost estimated at just over £1 billion over a decade, substantially reducing paper use. We are the first G7 country to put digital and paper trade documents on an equal footing. Given the international prominence of English law, this will kick-start digitalisation globally. We advocate similar change by trading partners. We will support businesses through international trade advisers, trade and investment hubs and initiatives promoting digitalisation, including the Centre for Digital Trade and Innovation.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the Electronic Trade Documents Act offers us the potential of combining our common-law tradition with our expertise in new technologies such as blockchain and our excellent financial services ecosystem? Does he agree that we must work to ensure that everybody in the business department communicates through every channel—particularly to SMEs in the UK—the opportunity that exists through this Act and, similarly, that all our missions overseas communicate to companies and politicians around the world to enable them to see the benefits of passing similar legislation? As my noble friend the Minister knows, it takes two to trade.

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for those comments and questions. This is a quite remarkable Act. In fact, it is the only Act of Parliament that I have read from beginning to end. It is only four pages long and 1,500 words; I recommend it for its brevity and its conciseness. It simply does one thing, which is to take the architecture of 300-plus years of mercantile trading which has been done in paper form and translate that into digital to have the same legal impact. The onus is now on the Department for Business and Trade to communicate this to our SMEs, as my noble friend indicated. To that end, we are using international trade advisers and the International Chamber of Commerce, and we have set up the Centre for Digital Trade and Innovation at Teesside University. A lot of work will now be done to raise awareness of this, which will be for the great benefit of our trade.