UK-US Trade Deal Negotiating Objectives

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

My noble friend makes an excellent point. The opportunities for the UK are substantial. I say again that this is a landmark deal that will set the standard for world-leading trade agreements. Starting off with the US is a very good start. For example, it is very exciting that tariffs will likely be reduced for Bentleys from Crewe, Aston Martins from Warwickshire and Wales, UK cheese, which currently has a 17% tariff, and ceramics from Warwickshire, which have a 28% tariff. We hope that these tariffs will be reduced, as they should be, in the negotiations. Noble Lords might ask me, as the Minister, what we are going to get in return from America. That includes raisins and wine from California, and, as the Prime Minister said, Stetsons replacing salmon. There is a lot to be hopeful about in the negotiations.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I have not had an opportunity to read this long document, but I congratulate the Minister in one respect: at least in this document, the Government have tried to produce a proper economic assessment of the potential of a free trade agreement with the United States. Is it not odd that, on the much more important free trade agreement with the EU—despite what the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, said, it still accounts for two and a half times more of our trade than the United States—no economic assessment was produced at all? How can he explain that?

Secondly, will the Minister acknowledge that, while any growth as a result of a UK-US deal would be welcome and important, it is trivial by comparison with the numbers at stake in our EU relationship?

Finally, will he acknowledge that, in the special case of President Trump, trade deals are extremely difficult to negotiate? He does not believe, like Britain and the European Union, in the concept of a rules-based multilateral order governing trade. He has been trying to weaken the WTO by not appointing judges to its highest arbitration panels. He believes that might is more important than right, and he judges trade by how much powerful America can grab—it is what academics would call “managed trade”, not free trade. We are putting far too much importance—we need realism—about getting anything substantial out of these negotiations.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I am much more optimistic than the noble Lord. I can perhaps reassure him that we are aware that some reforms are required for the WTO. We very much want to play our part in ensuring that those reforms are carried through.

The second thing to say is that the US deal is the first of several. The noble Lord will know that we have Japan, New Zealand and Australia to come, and of course the EU. There was a chance in the past few days, and yesterday, to question my noble friend Lord True on the EU deal. I do not want to be drawn in on that except to say that, in the US deal, we start from a very good platform because we are one nation negotiating with one other nation; with the EU, it is of course a bit more complicated, in that we are dealing with 27 countries —and the House will understand when I say that there are a few more complications than that. However, we are very confident that we will be able to negotiate both a US deal and an EU deal in parallel. I hope that helps to answer the noble Lord’s questions, but I doubt it.