EU: Free Trade Agreements

Lord Pearson of Rannoch Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livingston of Parkhead]

My noble friend is right to draw attention to TTIP, the US-EU agreement, which will indeed bring substantial benefits. I believe that the UK is expected to gain around £10 billion a year, which is about £400 for every family in the UK, the US is expected to gain about £80 billion and the EU about £100 billion, so there are very substantial gains. In addition, there will be very substantial gains for the rest of the world, which are believed to be in excess of £80 billion.

I take my noble friend’s point that energy presents some challenges. Certainly, we hope to see the US exporting energy, so that the benefits of shale to global energy prices would help all industry rather than just those in the US. In any event, we believe that helping to have openness and convergence of standards will assist all citizens, not just in the EU but in the US and around the world.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords, if we left the political construct of the European Union, is there any reason why, as one of the world’s largest economies, we could not maintain our existing trade agreements and sign new ones with Commonwealth countries and the markets of the future? Surely we would enjoy our own seat on the World Trade Organisation.

[Lord Livingston of Parkhead]

If we were to exit the EU, there would be no certainty that any of the free trade agreements would actually continue. While the UK is a significant economy in its own right—and that is important—these agreements take many years to negotiate. Even assuming that we could renegotiate them, we would not have the leverage that the EU has, as the single largest trading bloc in the world, to make such agreements. Therefore, I think that it would be very difficult to replicate them, particularly within a short space of time.