Trade: Trans-Pacific Partnership

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, the UK will ensure that any future accession talks with the CPTPP are consistent with the UK’s interests and the Government’s stated policies and priorities. We will not make changes to our intellectual property regime that are in any way detrimental to ourselves.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches are enthusiastic for UK businesses to utilise any expanded opportunities to export to the CPTPP countries in future, but this is the future, and what we face over the next couple of months, according to the DIT website this morning, is the fact that the UK will be trading on a free trade basis with only 8% of all UK trade—the worst record for the UK since the 1930s. Does the Minister agree that that will be disastrous for British exporters in the current economic climate and a very weak basis to look for further opportunities around the world?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are very keen to reach agreement with the European Union because of the importance that the noble Lord refers to; we are still working very hard on that. We have plenty of other trading partners around the world. If that agreement is not reached, we will trade on WTO terms with the EU. I think that there will be a bright future for this country in any event.