Trade Negotiations

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

That is wonderful to hear—a worthy celebration indeed. Of course, I am delighted that, as a result of this deal, Scotland will benefit from significant tariff liberalisation for a whole variety of its exports, which includes whisky, for which the current 150% tariff will reduce to 75% from day one of the deal, reaching just 40% after 10 years. The Scotch Whisky Association described the deal as

“a once in a generation deal and a landmark moment”

which is “transformational” for Scotch whisky exports.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I know many of us who were on the International Agreements Committee at an earlier stage, when we were looking at the difficulties of negotiating a deal with India, realise that it is a significant achievement and very welcome. It is not, however, as comprehensive as we had hoped it might be. Positively, I am very glad to see the procurement opportunities that it offers. In that regard, access to procurement in India is very large scale, but we need something which is digitally available, a bit like our own Tenders Electronic Daily. Is there an expectation that small businesses will have access to those procurement opportunities through that kind of mechanism? Secondly, we had hoped, at one time, that we might—and it would be very significant—have an investor-state dispute settlement provision in the deal. I do not understand that there is such a thing, but are there any side letters about giving assurance to UK investors in India for the future? Regarding parliamentary scrutiny, the CRaG provisions will apply, but would the Minister reiterate what we call the “Grimstone rule”—that is, if our International Agreements Committee was to recommend that the deal should be debated by this House, that such a debate would take place before the Government proceeded to ratification?

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

On the investor treaty and how we are making sure that we get investor protections for people looking to invest across borders, the bilateral investment treaty is not included as part of this free trade agreement. That is the next stage in these agreements, and that will be followed up afterwards. It is not part of the free trade agreement, but those negotiations are still ongoing and will be part of future conversations. Forgive me: the noble Lord asked a second question; would he mind just repeating it?

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

The Grimstone rule is essentially that the Government commit that, if our International Agreements Committee said that the treaty should be debated by this House, that debate should take place before the Government proceed to ratification.

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

I will follow that up with the noble Lord.