Steel Safeguards

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I am afraid that I cannot give the assurance, but we have one of the BEIS Ministers, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), on the Bench, he will have heard the hon. Gentleman’s questions and he will be happy to discuss them more fully. We will continue to work with our industries. Of course, procurement is interesting; it has been raised with me by many of the downstream producers. Some of the steels needed in the procurement contracts we do not make here. Many we do. We have discussed at length some of the incredible work. The rebar from his constituency is used in places such as Hinkley Point C and in new nuclear. That will continue to be an important part of our steel producers’ opportunities to make sure that the UK’s new infrastructure is very well and robustly held together by British steel.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. I am sure she will be aware that my constituency is home to several small and medium-sized enterprises, notably engineering companies and manufacturers supplying to the defence, automotive and offshore wind sectors—that is increasingly the case as we move to quadruple our offshore wind output. What steps can she take to remove market access barriers to increase exports for this market segment to countries such as Brazil, which has a potential 700 GW in the near future for offshore wind?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on this. As my Department champions opportunities for green trade exports, particularly in the technologies and manufacturing where the UK is now genuinely a world leader—offshore wind and others that are coming through—we want to make sure that we have the ability to find those routes to market for our brilliant British businesses. In things such as the trade deal with Australia and New Zealand, we have stripped away tariffs on green and environmental goods to ensure that those markets can open as quickly as possible and that we can see the best of British around the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that the food and drink sector across the whole of the UK, and in Scotland, is a priority for this team. I can honestly tell him that I am more than happy to sit down with him and his colleagues to work through some of the challenges that we both share, but I also want him to recognise the opportunities that our new trade deals will offer. When we deliver on those trade opportunities, I hope he will give credit to the UK Government.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

As the recently appointed trade envoy to Brazil, it would be remiss of me not to point out just one of the huge opportunities we have in building a positive relationship with Brazil. At 212 million, its population is seven times the combined populations of New Zealand and Australia. Some 65 million people in Brazil do not have a bank account. To build on the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Gareth Davies), does the Minister agree that financial services represent a fantastic opportunity, not just for this country but to support Brazil in bringing in its own revenues, as it should be?

[Mr Speaker]

I am going to be generous—I think it was stretching the original question—but the Minister will pick it up.

Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The CPTPP enables us to have much deeper trading relationships, particularly in areas of UK strength such as digital, data and services, where there are very strong chapters on those issues.

The fact is that the likely benefits of joining the CPTPP are much greater as the economic centre of gravity shifts towards Asia and as more countries join the agreement. Joining this partnership will position us at the heart of the action in global trade. The CPTPP is exactly the kind of free trade area the UK wants to be part of: it is liberalising on tariffs and other trade barriers; it has high standards on labour and the environment; it is ambitious in digital and services; and it is tailor-made to help us to cement the UK’s status as a global hub for services, digital and advanced manufacturing. Our exporters will no longer have to pay tariffs on 99.9% of their goods, from Scotch whisky and Stoke-on-Trent ceramics to cars made in the north of England and the midlands. Our farmers will benefit from a strong appetite for beef and lamb in Asia, with CPTPP markets expected to account for a quarter of global meat demand by 2030. Our manufacturers will enjoy common standards and rules of origin, securing flexibility, reliability and lower prices on inputs.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that if British business is to invest it needs confidence, and that that confidence will come by restating our commitment to free trade by diversifying our trade offer, generating new jobs and bringing more stability to the jobs we already have?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A key benefit of the CPTPP is increased resilience. It means that our exporters will not have all their eggs in one basket. They will have options about where they send their goods. It will also mean our importers are able to rely on strong relationships in countries which follow the rules and have good standards in areas such as the environment and worker protection.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

That is absolutely right. I saw an article in The Daily Telegraph this week by Jeremy Warner, which said, “It is vitally important that FTAs are pursued in a transparent and accountable manner that takes fully on board the interests, fears and concerns of domestic constituencies and affected sectors. The battle for free trade needs to be won as much at home as abroad.” That is why we need to know whether we will get a proper debate and votes in this place. The Secretary of State has said nothing about whether Parliament will get a vote either on the negotiating objectives or on a deal at the end of the day.

[Marco Longhi]

The shadow Secretary of State quotes articles. Does she agree with the article in the Socialist Worker that states that protectionism will not protect workers’ jobs?

[Emily Thornberry]

No.

Let us move on to New Zealand and Canada. Having seen what has happened with Australia, they will surely demand the same deal for their farmers as the price of support for UK accession to CPTPP. Handshake by handshake, the future of British farming will be sold.

The threat to our country’s interests lies not just in what the Secretary of State is willing to do, or in the interests that she is willing to sacrifice as the price of admission to the agreement, but in what will happen once we are in the door. That brings me to my next quote, which is typically pithy and to the point, from New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. She said that investor-state dispute settlement “is a dog”.

When she inherited the CPTPP negotiations at the last minute in 2017, the new New Zealand Prime Minister was willing to jeopardise the entire process to demand that New Zealand be exempted from the provisions on investor-state dispute settlement. She did not want the threat of lawsuits in the name of wealthy foreign corporations restricting her ability to introduce policies for the protection of consumers, workers, the environment and public health policy. For the same reason, we have had no IDS—or, rather, ISDS—[Interruption.] Well, it was a Freudian slip. That is why we have had no ISDS provisions in any of the post-Brexit trade agreements signed by the Government with 67 non-EU countries, with the European Union and with Australia. So when it comes to CPTPP, why are the Government not simply following New Zealand’s lead and demanding an exemption from the provisions on ISDS? Again, it goes back to the big decision taken by the Secretary of State that what matters most is not minimising the risks of this deal, maximising the opportunities and making it right for Britain, but simply getting it done as quickly as possible, even if that means selling out our farming industry and exposing our country to the risks of ISDS.

It is apparently okay, though, because in respect of all of those risks the Government simply assert that we have nothing to fear. We have the same assurances with respect to food safety, online harms, patent laws, procurement rules, data protection, medicine prices, intellectual property and our NHS, and that is all without mentioning the 22 suspended provisions in the agreement, which the strategy document simply ignores. We are simply told that none of those provisions will be a problem for the UK and that we should trust the Government—we should trust the Government to protect our interests, even though they cannot tell us how. Instead of exemptions, we are reliant on assertions. Instead of amendments they offer us assurances. I respectfully say to the Secretary of State that we have had enough of the Government’s assurances when it comes to negotiations on trade, the Northern Ireland protocol, non-tariff barriers with Europe, and the betrayal of our fishing industry, our farming industry and our steel industry. We have had enough of being told by them just to take their word for it and everything will turn out fine and all our interests will be protected.

The reason this matters so much is because it is this Secretary of State who stands personally accused of saying one thing to the British farming industry and another for the sake of CPTPP. If she is willing to break her promises to the farming community that she represents, why would not she do the same to the health service on which we all depend? That is why, while the Labour party remains committed to the possibilities that joining the CPTPP offers, we will continue to demand a fresh approach to the accession process, starting with proper protection for our farmers and food standards, total exemption from the provisions on ISDS, and a complete carve-out for our national health service, patient data included.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

It seems a long time since 18 July 2018, when I first announced to the House that we were beginning the public consultation phase that would inevitably lead to where we are today, so I congratulate the Secretary of State and her Ministers on getting us to this point so expeditiously, and I thank all those at the DIT who have done so much to get us into this position, particularly Crawford Falconer and John Alty, who is to stand down as permanent secretary. I wish him all the best and give him my very grateful thanks for all the work he has done.

Especially in the light of the speech by the shadow Secretary of State against international trade, it is right to say why we believe in free trade. We believe in free trade because it allows countries to use comparative advantage within an international rules-based system for the benefit of their own people and those outside their own borders. It is essential for developing countries to be able to trade their way out of poverty in the long term, and the rise of non-tariff barriers among the world’s richest countries over the past decade is a disgrace that we should hear a lot more about.

As I have said before, in Q1 of 2009, only 0.7% of all the G20’s imports were covered by restrictive measures; it is now 10.3%. That is putting an almost insurmountable barrier particularly to small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries. We need to get a grip on that because whatever we talk about in the aid debate we are counterbalancing in the restrictions that we are putting on in the trade debate. If we want to have a morally consistent policy on development, we need to deal with both sides of the equation.

Free trade is also about consumers. I want the incomes of working families in Britain to go further. I want them to have greater choice, and for them to be given greater information about the products that they buy so that they can decide for themselves how to spend their money, not so that the Government can determine what choices they can and cannot make. It is essential that we say that, because some people even in my own party seem to have forgotten why free trade is so important.

[Marco Longhi]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that consumers will therefore have cheaper access to white vans and St George’s flags, which particularly our self-employed make use of in the construction industry?

[Dr Fox]

I cannot think what my hon. Friend is alluding to, but it is certainly true that consumers will have access to far greater choice. Look at the range of consumer goods that we have—all sorts of white goods, not just vans. Look at the quality of what we have in terms of household appliances. They are cheaper and better quality, and they have a greater technology than they would otherwise. That is what free trade means. The trouble with free trade is that its benefits are very widely spread to consumers, whereas any difficulties to producers tend to fall on very narrow sectors and are therefore used politically by the Opposition to promote their anti-trade policies.

CPTPP

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) for securing the debate, and wish to align myself with the warm comments of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) towards his good self. I followed and appreciated his endeavours well before I became a Member of this place.

Accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership—yes, I would like to call it the CPTPP as well—will clearly strengthen our place on the world stage, giving us a truly global outlook following our exit from the European Union. Joining this free trade area, which covered some £9 trillion of GDP in 2019 alone, could cut tariffs in vital UK industries such as food and drink, and the automotive sector. To be a little parochial here, that is so important for my Dudley North constituents, the black country and the west midlands as a whole. Accession will also create new opportunities in forward-leaning areas such as digital and data, and across a whole range of services.

Opportunities for trade and collaboration now exist far beyond the confines of the EU, and I know that the British people would want us to pursue membership for the huge benefits that it could bring. It creates the conditions for growth, trade and jobs, and we are well placed to take advantage of those economic benefits, with several significant free trade agreements already in place. I commend the efforts of the Secretary of State and her wonderful team in securing them in such a short space of time.

All countries have felt the economic pinch from protecting citizens from the horrors of the coronavirus pandemic. The CPTPP will allow us to further diversify our economic resilience and supply chain to build back better. Something that has concerned me over the previous couple of decades, as we have looked at a global Britain, is the issue of onshoring, which has perhaps become of greater significance in particular key sectors of our economy.

The UK is world leading in digital advancement and research. Modern digital trade rules that facilitate free and trusted cross-border data flows remove unnecessary barriers for British businesses, facilitating even more trade, including for some of our world-renowned products. The CPTPP is a very-high-standards agreement, and the rules will have huge benefits for the UK. The reality is that UK products such as beef and lamb have been locked out of overseas markets for unfair reasons, so it is in our interests to sign up to a high-standards agreement that would benefit many of our farmers across the UK significantly.

We already have extremely ambitious standards in areas such as the environment, animal welfare, food standards and intellectual property. It is in our interests to be in agreement with similar ones, so that we can ask the same of other countries and get access to their markets. Accession will grow our economy, increase revenue and create jobs. Let us do it as soon as possible. People are listening. Businesses are listening, and this is about confidence.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now come to the first of the Front-Bench speeches, which will be by Drew Hendry from the Scottish National party, who also wins the prize for the most colourful backdrop.

Office for Investment

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley.

The Office for Investment will bring a real focus on delivery and inward investment. Evidence shows a direct correlation between job creation and foreign investment. If there ever was a time for that to happen at pace, it is now. Let me draw a loose parallel between the Office for Investment and directly elected Mayors. When they were first proposed in the early 2000s, I was set against them. In most ways I was wrong. I saw the whole thing as a replication of a failed tier of government—county councils—but the proof of the pudding has been in the eating. In the West Midlands we have had a dynamic Mayor in Andy Street. He makes things happen. A straightforward example of that was his intervention in the demolition of a large derelict block of offices known as Cavendish House in Dudley—a blight on the Dudley landscape for 15 years, which nobody was seemingly able to remove.

The creation of the Office for Investment under the leadership of Minister Lord Grimstone, working hand in hand with No. 10 to attract investment, is absolutely key. In some respects, it is a similar functional role—a supermayor, if I may suggest it, although Members of the other place would never think that of themselves. So much depends on the quality of the individual selected. We need only look at London to see the stark difference between the dynamic former Mayor that we used to have and the depressing failed existing one.

The other focus that the Office for Investment can bring is the strategic nature and application of investments around the country. Opportunities in technology, advanced manufacturing, services, green research and development and digital are all strong areas of growth that are aligned with Government priorities for productivity and a greener economy, and their development across the country is key. That brings opportunities to areas where there has been relentless decline over many years—forgotten areas such as mine in Dudley and the Black Country—levelling up.

The Office for Investment has a big job to do and it has my full support. It represents a single front door to the UK for investors, who can confidently look at the UK with deliverability and speed of return at the heart of their investment in UK plc.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

As I would like the Minister to have time to make his speech, I call on the hon. Member for Strangford to make a short contribution.

Arms Trade: Yemen

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

Where arms are sold, there will always be questions asked, and rightly so. But armaments and technologies are advancing at such a pace that once a country decides to tie itself to another for that supply, the supplying country can exert influence. We account for about 20% of Saudi arms imports. I submit to colleagues that it is far better for stability in the region and for jobs at home that it is the UK that has that influence.

I know Labour Members hate capitalism, but if we withdraw sales from Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia will simply seek suppliers from other countries—that could be Russia or even China. Do hon. Members really want Russia and China to fill that supply vacuum? We have seen their behaviour in Crimea and Xinjiang.

The middle east is a highly complex geopolitical arena that requires long-term solutions, not short-term political opportunism. The Government are using all their diplomatic and humanitarian expertise to bring an end to the conflict in Yemen and alleviate the humanitarian crisis. We do not ignore those in need, even when facing domestic financial pressures, with over €1 billion in aid committed to support affected rural households and individuals in Yemen.

The consolidated EU and national arms export licensing criteria are taken very seriously by the Government when assessing all export licence applications. Every application is assessed on a case-by-case basis, using a range of information, including reports from non-governmental organisations and our overseas network. Those original frameworks were set out in law through Acts of Parliament by the then Labour Government in 2002 and 2008, yet it is the Labour Opposition who now take issue with the frameworks and their application. Is it their own laws that they are unhappy with, or the application of those laws by highly trained civil servants?

Trade Bill

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate. I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) in saying that whenever this Bill comes to the Chamber, the interest and concern from my constituents is huge.

I will start by talking about amendment 4 and the NHS. So much of the past year has been about protecting the NHS. It is fair to say that we all appreciate the NHS more than ever before, and this must be reflected in the Bill. My constituents are concerned about the increasing marketisation and outsourcing of NHS services. They are concerned, too, about the selling of and open access to NHS UK patient data. They want to protect our NHS. That is why amendment 4 on data protection is so important. While the Government consistently claim in public statements that the NHS is not for sale in future trade deals, the best way to ensure this is to legislate in this Bill, once and for all, to ensure that the NHS is outside the scope of any future trade agreement, in all respects. The Government’s resistance to taking that step and to including that in the Bill gives us reason for concern about their long-term intentions.

I turn to amendment 6 on our food and farming standards. I have received an overwhelming number of emails from constituents on food standards and animal welfare standards, which go hand in hand. It is so important that we get this right. We have some of the most stringent food and farming standards in the world, in terms of the rules that producers must keep to before food reaches our shelves. It is crucial that we keep the standards consistent across imported goods as well. We need a code of practice, as provided for by amendment 6, to ensure that standards are maintained in any trade deal expected to affect food, animal welfare or, very importantly, the environment.

It is really important, as we have heard, that Parliament has the chance to scrutinise properly the full text of any trade deals. The CRaG arrangements are simply not effective and strong enough to ensure that we have a chance to consider whatever is in the trade deals. We need a much stronger way of scrutinising these deals, which affect so many aspects of our lives. That is why I support the amendments on scrutiny.

Finally, I want to speak in support of the amendments on human rights, including the so-called genocide amendment. For so many years, UK Governments have supported the principle that trade treaties should contain commitments on the protection of human rights, and have given the European Union the right to suspend or revoke those treaties if there are serious abuses of human rights. Now that we are no longer part of the EU, it is right that we make sure that we retain that provision. The two cross-party amendments to the Bill agreed by the House of Lords would obligate the Government to provide an assessment of the human rights record of a state before starting trade negotiations with it, as well as allowing for that assessment to be scrutinised by MPs and peers. It is vital that we include these changes.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con) [V]]

I start by saying that I will not vote in favour of any Lords amendments this evening.

The huge efforts we witnessed the trade team make in order to secure continuity agreements worth £897 billion are not just one of the strongest expressions of Brexit delivered, but bring confidence to businesses by eliminating the uncertainty that so many pundits said that Brexit would bring. That confidence means investment, which means growth, and growth means jobs. It is lamentable, especially at this time of crisis, that we have not had a single speech from an Opposition Member of any party that promotes UK plc; instead, we have had a litany of criticism and negativism, which does the opposite of generating business confidence. One would think that at least some of the pragmatists on the Opposition Benches might, in the national interest, bring themselves to accept that Brexit has happened, and that we should come together to do everything possible to rebuild our economy, because that means jobs for the people of Islington and Camden, as it does for the people of Dudley North.

There are huge prizes to be had. Accession to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership would open up amazing opportunities in a market worth about $30 trillion. I have huge confidence that our team will bring this about; that we will sign agreements with Australia, New Zealand and the USA; and that we will strengthen ties with Mercosur countries such as Brazil, which have huge growth potential.

Lords amendment 3 has special importance for some of my colleagues. Although I completely agree with the spirit and intentions behind it, the key for me is that Parliament must always remain sovereign. Ultimately, this is what Brexit was all about—answering the crucial question, “Who decides?” The unintended consequence of this amendment is that it would provide the judiciary with powers that would undermine Parliament. My contention is that questions of genocide—its definition, its impact over time, and measures for responding to it—are so complex that it is not the judiciary, but Parliament, under advice and with the royal prerogative, that is best placed to deal with them. Therefore, while I very much respect colleagues who are minded to support this amendment, and understand their reasons for doing so, I will not.

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab) [V]]

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this most important debate. I will support the Collins and Alton amendments on human rights. Members from all parts of the House will have heard the Foreign Secretary on the “Andrew Marr Show” this weekend. When challenged about today’s amendments on human rights, he responded,

“we shouldn’t be engaged in free trade negotiations with countries abusing human rights.”

What does that mean for the UK’s continued arms trade with some of the most despotic regimes in the world, including Saudi Arabia, the UK’s biggest arms customer and one of the world’s most authoritarian regimes? UK-made warplanes, bombs and missiles are playing a central role in the attacks on Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition, which has led the largest and longest humanitarian crisis in the world.

Today, 80% of the population in Yemen are living a brutal cycle of starvation, malnutrition and sickness, and they are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. In the words of a recent UN report, the situation in Yemen is a “stain on humanity’s conscience”. By continuing to sell arms to the Saudi regime, despite overwhelming evidence of that regime’s repeated breaches of international humanitarian law, Britain is made complicit in these war crimes. The same UN report states that the continued supply of weapons is only perpetuating the conflict and prolonging the suffering of the Yemeni people.

Between March 2015 and July 2020, there were 535 alleged breaches of international humanitarian law by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, according to the Ministry of Defence. That is more than one a week for the entire duration of the conflict. These breaches include strikes in residential areas—on schools, hospitals and family homes. Civil rights organisations such as the Campaign Against Arms Trade and Amnesty International have repeatedly and consistently called for the UK Government to halt arms transfers to the Saudi-led coalition because of the clear risk of such arms being used to breach human rights and international humanitarian law in Yemen.

While this Government continue to duck their legal responsibilities, Yemeni civilians are dying in their thousands. It is shameful, and it has to stop. Questions of legality have already been raised around our ongoing arms deals with Saudi Arabia. These amendments would add an extra layer of scrutiny, so that we could ensure that UK products were not being used in violation of international humanitarian laws. They would oblige Ministers to provide a full assessment of the human rights records of any overseas states before starting trade negotiations with them. MPs and peers could scrutinise any evidence, and human rights reports would be reviewed annually to check ongoing compliance with a robust system that ensured that the UK’s ongoing and future trade partners adhered to basic human rights principles. If being an independent trading nation means one thing, it should be the choice to decide which countries we are prepared to trade with and which we are not. If we do not support the amendment today, the Government will have clearly shown that it is happy to turn a blind eye to the blood on its hands. Today, we have a chance to put that right, and the constituents of Liverpool, Riverside urge Members from all parts of the House to support the amendment.

Continuity Trade Agreements: Parliamentary Scrutiny

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

The Vienna convention has been around for a long time, and I mentioned that many agreements were provisionally applied by the European Union. I specifically mentioned the CARIFORUM agreement with the Caribbean Community countries and the Dominican Republic, which is also of course a Caribbean country. The reason I mention it is that it has been provisionally applied for the past 12 years. It was signed by the last Labour Government. If the right hon. Lady was happy with something signed by the previous Labour Government that is still provisionally applied today, she is making a bit of a mountain out of the remaining days that we are adding to the process, given the fact that that has been provisionally applied for 12 years. Kenya is a new deal; it is not the continuity of the pre-existing deal.

What steps are we taking? We are stepping up our efforts and working extremely hard. When will UK businesses be told? We are telling businesses all the time about the deals that we have done and landed.

The right hon. Lady mentioned Ghana. There is a deal on the table; it replicates the EU agreement and is consistent with the EU-Ghana stepping stone deal applied in 2016. We are not asking Ghana to do anything that it is not already doing.

The right hon. Lady said in her letter to the Secretary of State on 10 November, which she referred to, that representatives of countries from Cameroon to Montenegro have been communicating with the shadow International Trade team. I do not know whether it is quite right for the shadow Secretary of State to be correspondingly directly with our negotiating partners during negotiations that we have been carrying out on behalf of the whole country. I would urge her in the interests of transparency to release all that correspondence with our negotiation opposite numbers, which she referred to in that letter.

It is ironic that the right hon. Lady invokes Ghana, given the amendments to the Trade Bill that she supported on other countries’ domestic production standards. The very exports that she is so worried about would have been prevented under those Labour amendments from entering the country in the first place.

The irony in Labour Members complaining that we have not yet rolled over all these EU agreements is this: they did not support these agreements in the first place. They voted against EU-Singapore, they abstained on EU-Japan, and they split three ways on EU-Canada, so they are complaining about agreements not being rolled over that they never supported in the first place.

As we know, Labour has moved on from the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) to the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). The right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury is caught between them both, first geographically and now on policy. She cannot escape from this: when it comes to trade and trade agreements, successive Labour leaders cannot decide whether they want these agreements or not. In short, they are in complete chaos, and their approach deserves to be dismissed.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con) [V]]

I thank the Minister for his detailed and full responses. With more trade equating to more jobs in Dudley North and across the country, will my right hon. Friend update the House on the upcoming trade deal with Mercosur countries in the light of the recent Joint Economic and Trade Committee with Brazil?

[Greg Hands]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent question. I am aware of his background—I think he worked for five years in Brazil and knows the market extremely well. Mercosur is, of course, a very important partner for the United Kingdom, and there are significant opportunities for British business to do more trade, including with Brazil. Just last week, the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State for International Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire, were pleased to host their first Joint Economic and Trade Committee with Minister Fendt from Brazil. They spoke about success to date in financial services and food and drink sectors. As there is not an EU-Mercosur deal in effect, any future UK-Mercosur deal is not within the scope of this programme.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

What recent assessment she has made of the value of technology sector exports to the UK.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

What recent assessment she has made of the value of technology sector exports to the UK.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Graham Stuart)]

Technology is an important and growing sector. In fact, sales of our digital tech exports totalled £23 billion last year, and Oxford Economics thinks they will be worth up to £31 billion by 2025. Our ambitious approach to digital trade in free trade agreements will boost exports, and support economic growth, job creation and prosperity. We have negotiated strong measures, not least in Japan, and will seek similar outcomes in our talks with the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership.

[Graham Stuart]

There are specific issues including not having to worry about the added cost of setting up data servers in Japan because of the elements that look at data transfer; a guarantee that the trade secrets underpinning innovations of entrepreneurs in my hon. Friend’s constituency are protected and do not have to be shared across borders; and a clear commitment that entrepreneurs on both sides of the agreement will be able to operate in an open, secure and trustworthy online environment.

[Marco Longhi]

The deal with Japan includes some very ambitious chapters on digital and data, and a deal with the United States is set to benefit tech firms. Will my hon. Friend advise how Black Country firms can make the best of these future opportunities?

[Graham Stuart]

Tech firms in my hon. Friend’s constituency and across the UK will benefit from the opening of markets and the minimisation of barriers to trade, which will allow them to expand internationally, not least in the Asia-Pacific region. The joint DIT and Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport digital trade network, which was launched by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in June, will significantly improve our support for businesses from my hon. Friend’s constituency in that fast-growing part of the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

The reality is that what the EU is demanding goes far beyond Canada in terms of an ex-ante regime on state aid, as well as alignment with rules and regulations. We will not accept that. We do want a Canada-style deal. The reality is that the Labour party would not even accept a Canada-style deal with Canada.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

It is an undisputed fact that capitalism and free markets are the surest route out of poverty. Can my right hon. Friend update the House on how the Department is using trade to boost development in Africa?

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Before I returned to the Department, I was the chair of the trade out of poverty all-party parliamentary group in this place. We have achieved duty free, quota free access for 39 African countries, and only yesterday the Prime Minister appointed 11 new Africa trade envoys. However, what would be unhelpful to our trade relationship with Africa is Labour and SNP Members’ proposals to dictate domestic production standards in the developing world, which has the potential to kill off our trade with those countries. I would ask them to look those countries in the eye when the Ghanaians cannot sell us their cocoa, when the Caribbean cannot sell us bananas, when the Kenyans—

Oral Answers to Questions

Marco Longhi Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I take a very strong interest in our superb bilateral trade relationship with Taiwan, which has actually provided a lot of assistance to the United Kingdom during the pandemic. This autumn we will hold our annual trade talks with my Taiwanese counterpart, with whom I first engaged in such talks in 2016.

Like us, Taiwan, through its membership of the World Trade Organisation, is committed to the same values of free trade and free markets as we are, and we look forward to deepening our relationship with Taiwan in the coming trade talks.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

What assessment she has made of the potential merits of free trade agreements with countries other than the US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mr Ranil Jayawardena)]

For the first time in almost 50 years, we are able to determine our own trade policy, and there is much interest in the potential of a free trade agreement with Britain from our partners around the globe. We will weigh up a multitude of considerations and we will be looking closely at the progress we make on market access improvements in the months ahead.

While we remain open to taking forward negotiations with a number of global partners, we have already had productive discussions on how to enhance our trading relationship with the Government of India, as I detailed earlier, with the Gulf Co-operation Council, and with the Southern Common Market, known as Mercosur.

[Marco Longhi]

Having lived and worked in South America for five years, I am aware of the huge untapped potential that countries on that continent can offer, particularly for our high-tech manufacturing bases in Dudley and in the Black Country, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey) mentioned. Will my hon. Friend update the House on any discussions to open up these markets and opportunities offered by a post-Brexit Britain?

[Mr Jayawardena]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the untapped potential of South American markets. Britain used to do more in this part of the world, so my Department is working to reignite those trading relationships through regular ministerial discussions, including with Brazil, to open up opportunities for trade. We have already secured a number of free trade agreements to ensure continuity of access for British businesses, and we are interested in further opportunities to deepen these relationships in the region, including through Mercosur.