Canada-UK Trade Deal

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the comments by the Prime Minister of Canada on 11 November about the United Kingdom’s prospects of a trade deal with Canada.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Department for International Trade (Lord Grimstone of Boscobel) (Con)]

My Lords, both the UK and Canada remain committed to a seamless transition of our trading relationship at the end of the transition period, so that British and Canadian businesses and consumers can continue to benefit. Officials have been in regular contact to discuss this and the Government are hopeful of securing agreement by the end of this year.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, in August 2018, the Canadian Prime Minister said that the Canadians would be ready to start negotiations on what he thought would be a very easy roll-on agreement the day that Britain left the European Union—which was last January. He also offered to second Canadian officials to help us if that would improve matters. Here we are, six weeks before the end of the transition, and the agreement has not yet been fixed. Can the Minister explain why?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, I can explain exactly why. Agreement was almost reached with Canada in March 2019, but Canada did not like the temporary tariff reductions that we brought in and decided to walk away from the negotiating table, returning only in July this year.