Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, in reading the Act, my noble friend will have realised that reliable systems for authenticating electric trade documents is one of the central operational issues. Will the Government therefore give their full support to the International Chamber of Commerce, which I am glad he mentioned, as it did so much good work in helping to bring this Act forward? Will they also try to put together assurance for what those reliable systems look like that will help traders to trade confidently?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that. I can report that, as the Minister in this area, I have chaired a forum with the International Chamber of Commerce where we are at the forefront of this initiative. By the UK leading the way here, with G7 and others following through, this will become a standard mechanism of trade and will be followed by the new operating border and the single trade window. We will therefore be moving rapidly to 2025 and a situation where trade can be expedited across international markets to the great benefit of our economy.