Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Garnier Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. DIT intends to grow over 550 roles outside London by 2025. Our second major location will be the Darlington economic campus, alongside three new trade and investment offices in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. I would also like my hon. Friend, as an east midlands MP, to know that I visited businesses in the east midlands just last month, and I am supported by DIT staff based all around the region, who are doing a fantastic job on trade advisory.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

5. What steps her Department is taking to reduce barriers to global trade for British businesses.

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)]

10. What steps her Department is taking to reduce barriers to global trade for British businesses.

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[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

In the past financial year, we have resolved 192 individual trade barriers in over 70 countries. Forty-five of these alone are estimated to be worth around £5 billion to British businesses over the next five years. The Department is working tirelessly to remove the most prominent bilateral trade barriers—work that has the potential to deliver £20 billion-worth of opportunities for businesses across the entire UK.

[Mark Garnier]

My right hon. Friend’s Department has done sterling work in achieving free trade deals with 60 or so countries around the world. However, many other countries are incredibly enthusiastic to do free trade agreements, and none more so than the Kingdom of Thailand. As the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Thailand, may I urge my right hon. Friend to do all he can to move talks beyond where they are now to secure a free trade agreement with the Kingdom of Thailand, which is keen to continue building on our great trading relationship?

[Greg Hands]

First, I commend my hon. Friend for his work as a former Minister at the Department. He will be delighted to know that we have increased the number of countries with which we have a free trade agreement to 71, in addition to the European Union itself. I also commend him for his work as trade envoy to Thailand and Brunei. He will know that we had our first ministerial joint economic and trade committee with Thailand in June, and we have agreed to deepen our trade relationship by developing an enhanced trade partnership. There are no current plans in place for an FTA, but this enhanced trade partnership could be the first step in laying the foundations for a potential FTA in the future.

Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill

Mark Garnier Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for International Trade, the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), for his speech. Broadly speaking, I agree with a great deal of what he said—although not everything—and I think that his speech will probably set the tone for this debate, which is less about the content of the trade deal and more about the process of scrutiny of it. As a member of the International Trade Committee, I have been heavily involved in the process. It is no easy job to consider several tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of pages of detailed documentation. The abridged version comes to eight volumes, so it is quite a challenge.

As a basic principle, I very much welcome the fact that we have signed these two trade deals. It is absolutely fantastic that, having got Brexit done, we are now delivering what Brexit has to offer. However, there will be an interesting argument, perhaps in relation to some of our constituents, that having taken back sovereignty from the European Union, we cede a bit of sovereignty every time we sign a trade deal with other countries around the world. That illustrates the point that we have taken back control from the EU, but we will give a bit of control to the CPTPP or the GCC. That is an interesting debate, but it is not what we will talk about today.

The trade deals are good. As we heard from the Secretary of State, on the Australian side, there will be an increase of £2.3 billion in economic activity, with increased income of £900 million to people working who benefit from it. As for New Zealand, there will be an increase in economic activity of £800 million, with increased income of £200 million for people working in the relevant sectors.

These two trade deals are incredibly important, because they are the first trade deals that we have signed ab initio since leaving the EU. All the trade deals that we have done until now have been roll-over trade deals, aside from the Japanese trade deal, which was a quasi-roll-over deal. When we were leaving the EU, it was incredibly important in the Department for International Trade—having been a Minister in that Department, I was very aware of what was going on—that we did not interrupt trade with all those countries around the world. That is why the shadow Secretary of State is right to say that they were cut-and-paste deals, because their objective was to not interrupt trade. I suspect that we will come back to some of the trade deals and renegotiate them, so that we get better outcomes for UK businesses.

[Anthony Mangnall]

I think that my hon. Friend and I met when the South Korean Trade Minister came to speak to members of the International Trade Committee. He said that the benefit of the roll-over trade agreement that the UK has with South Korea was that we could look to improve it. Indeed, South Korea had sent a letter to the Department for International Trade in August last year and it received a response shortly afterwards in September, and discussions were already under way in the Department, whereas the letter that it sent to the EU warranted no response. The roll-over deals already provide the opportunity to improve on them and, in the case of South Korea, that is happening. Does my hon. Friend think that that is what the Opposition should look at when it comes to trade agreements and roll-overs having real value?

[Mark Garnier]

Yes, I agree. It is incredibly important that we have a basis on which we can improve and that is absolutely the case. We would not be able to improve on these deals if we did not have them in the first place.

The Japan deal was a relatively easy one to scrutinise, because it was basically about looking at whether we had secured better terms than the European Union, based on the fact that we all started at the same time with that deal. It was a cut-and-paste deal with added lines, but the important point is that it was a modification of a roll-over deal.

These two deals are massively important, because there are two fundamental things that we need to consider. First, what are the UK Government’s negotiating objectives? We have never really understood what they are. A number of documents have laid out bits and pieces here and there, but there has never been a cohesive document to tell us what we are negotiating against or how we are doing relative to the outcome that we want.

The second important point is that this is the very first time that we are looking at the process of ratifying a trade deal, and it falls short of what we really need. I welcome this debate, which is an incredibly important one, but it is not the debate that we should be having. This is a debate about enabling certain legislation to ensure that the trade deal goes ahead. The Opposition have already said that they will support the Bill, but in the unlikely event that the Bill did not pass, that would leave us in breach of our international obligations under the trade deal. The trade deal has happened, so we would now be in trouble if we did not pass the Bill. It is incredibly important that we understand that this is an enabling Bill; it is not about how we scrutinise the deal itself.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The hon. Gentleman highlights the point that we have passed CRaG before passing the enabling legislation, which is quite an unusual thing to do; normally in this country we pass enabling legislation and then ratify treaties. Does he think that perhaps the Government should have done things in a different order to ensure that the right scrutiny would happen and that there would be no risk, not even a minuscule one, of our breaching international agreements?

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[Mark Garnier]

My International Trade Committee colleague gives me a fantastic prompt for the next part of my speech, which is about that part of the CRaG process. The CRaG process allows 21 days in which Parliament can hold up the process of ratification of the trade deal. In the lead-up to the recess, the International Trade Committee was desperate to get more scrutiny. We went out and spoke to huge numbers of interested parties such as the NFU, we read countless pages of written submissions, we heard from experts and all sorts of people, and we went through the whole thing, but it was not until the final days before the recess that we heard from any Ministers.

The Secretary of State, to her absolute credit, came and spent some five or six hours giving evidence to the International Trade Committee, but it was too late for the Committee to publish a full report or get a debate in Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) went to huge efforts to secure a debate on the two trade deals in order to hold back, if necessary, the ratification by 21 days under the CRaG process. We even applied to Mr Speaker for a debate under Standing Order No. 24, but unfortunately that debate was not allowed.

That means that the CRaG process is completely meaningless. If we cannot get a debate in Parliament, there is no way under the CRaG process to hold up—admittedly only by 21 days—the ratification of the deal. We cannot extend the process of scrutiny to get better scrutiny of the deals. That is a real problem, not just for these trade deals, but for Parliament and for its ability to scrutinise the Government properly under the CRaG process.

This is an incredibly important debate, because Parliament is an institution that learns by its mistakes, and we have made a lot of mistakes in the process of scrutinising these trade deals. We cannot afford to continue making mistakes. I am very disappointed by what has happened.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman: if people are not paying attention in their offices or wherever, what he says is a very gentle reminder to the Government and to Government Members that things could have been done better. He and I see scrutiny from very different political angles, but the point, which he makes eloquently and well, is that the scrutiny could have been far better than it is. I share his frustration, as do the hon. Members for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) and for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle)—we are all utterly frustrated. I praise him as a parliamentarian: he is in perfect flow and is doing an excellent job. This is a very important point, and I hope that Parliament will listen, because it comes from all sides and it probably comes best from him.

[Mark Garnier]

I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee for his kind words. In the spirit of collaboration, I think there is an opportunity for us all to work together. The Department for International Trade has reached out to us, and we have a visit to the parliamentary team coming up in the next couple of weeks.

There is a problem somewhere, but we are not too sure what it is. I was a Minister in the Department, and I found that the civil servants we worked with were second to none. As one of the Prime Minister’s international trade envoys—I believe I am on my fourth Prime Minister as a trade envoy—I continue to work with civil servants in the Department. It is important that we get this right. My experience with the Secretary of State is that she has been incredibly generous with her time and has been very engaging. I believe in her sincerity in trying to move things forward, but something fundamental has gone wrong with the interaction between the International Trade Committee and the Department. I do not know what it is, but we need to find out.

Something has also gone wrong with the process of scrutiny of international trade deals and with the CRaG process, so I urge the House to think hard about how to ensure that they run smoothly. At the end of the day, we have left the European Union and we ain’t going back. These are exactly the opportunities that are presented to this country. We must get this right. We must take advantage of global Britain.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

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[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford). Despite my attempts to be a second-hand car salesman and flog a 1954 Morris Minor, the real reason I am here is not to turn the Chamber into a car showroom but to speak as Chair of the International Trade Committee. Before I say too much more on that, though, I can confirm, following the Antipodean mentions of Dunedin, a city of 117,000 souls, that it is indeed the Gaelic for Edinburgh; I am glad that the hon. Gentleman mentioned that. To reciprocate on his awareness of Scotland, let me say that Mole Valley is important to many crofters, because online shopping for many medicines is done at Mole Valley Farmers—that is a wee punt in his direction as well.

While I am throwing compliments about, let me praise the shadow spokesman, the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), for reading our report on the Australian trade agreement. It is a gripping read, and I have good news for him: a next instalment is coming out on New Zealand fairly soon. I am sure that he is looking forward to that and that all of us on the Committee will gladly sign a copy for him just to make that an extra special experience for him. I can see nods. [Interruption.] Some are looking for a paperback version; there is a cheapskate from Northern Ireland at the back there, But it is good that that has been read. While I am in salesman mode, let me say to those who are into trade agreements and looking for good-quality information tomorrow that we have our meeting on the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership at 10 o’clock. The exact Committee Room escapes me—

[Mark Garnier]

Committee Room 16.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I thank my colleague very much for that.

I was reminded of something by what the hon. Member for Mole Valley said about the size of farming in New Zealand and the Scots exiles. I met a man named Andrew Morrison, who is from his part of the world, but originally from mine—his ancestors came from my constituency—and we talked about sheep, because he had sheep. I told him that I had 32 to 33 breeding ewes, depending on the year. He looked at me and said that he had 26, and there was a big pause. My chest was going out during the pause but, unfortunately, he went on to say, “Thousand”. So the hon. Gentleman is indeed right to say that the scale of agricultural production is massively different there.

We are here today to talk about these trade agreements and the legislation that is going forward. Trade agreements, on the whole, are to be welcomed. They are clawing back GDP that was lost by Brexit, although the Government figures do not say that. There are many nuances, and I will come to those by the end of my remarks, but I wish to start with the broad brush by asking why we are doing this. Surely we are doing this for our economic benefit and gain. We have then to set that in the context that the Government are doing it because Brexit is a damaging event to GDP, by up to about 5%.

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[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman is a very fine member of my Committee, if not the finest, bearing in mind that there are at least two fine members in front of me. He is right that the modelling can be wrong, but it is not usually out by £492 to £500. It may be out by £2 or £3. I caution him that if those models say that the outcome could be better, the flipside is that Brexit could be worse than the 5% that has been modelled using the same sort of criteria. I hope it is not. I would rather the optimistic side, but let us be aware that this thing can go either way.

We are often told that there are winners and losers in these trade deals. We have certainly identified losers today, including the crofter I alluded to. Certain losses are hitting agriculture. I decided as Chair of the International Trade Committee to write to the Australian high commission to ask if it could identify some losers in Australia we could speak to. It wrote back and told us that everyone was a winner in Australia and nobody at all was a loser. We set that in the context of the figures that were mentioned earlier for Australia and New Zealand. For New Zealand alone, agriculture, forestry and fishing will lose between £48 million and £97 million.

The chair of the Trade and Agriculture Commission Professor Lorand Bartels told us:

“I cannot think of another country that has significant agricultural production— so not the Hong Kongs or the Singapores of this world—liberalising fully in agriculture, even over what is almost a generation. … That is unusual.”

So the UK has done something very unusual here in opening up. It comes back to the point about free trade that was mentioned earlier. None of this is free trade. It is trade that still has restrictions. Rather than paying a tariff, now you need the paperwork. As people have found, paperwork itself is quite costly.

I am reminded of the man in the weekend paper—the brewer, I think from Kent. He had lost a large part of his £600,000 export market for beer to the European Union. It has now become a £2,000 market. He has lost 99.7% of his exports. He is now not exporting and cannot export to any country in the world. When he exports to the European Union, he is going to need paperwork, and the paperwork costs him. It is a hurdle to 99.7% of his trade.

[Mark Garnier]

On the question of farmers and agricultural producers here in the UK, the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. He says that there is an increased risk to those agricultural producers, but the one thing that has not come up in the debate so far is consumer choice. It is an interesting point. Ultimately, we have to look after our farmers—that is incredibly important—but we also have many constituents who may well feel slightly aggrieved that we are restricting the amount of food that can be brought in, which means people having to pay more Waitrose prices. Would it not be all right to get Kentucky Fried Chicken that comes from Kentucky?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Absolutely. This is the tension that there has always been in trade policy over the years—do you abandon your countryside and rural places? I use stark words deliberately, but it is a sliding scale between various points. Political judgments are made for various reasons, and people will come down on one side or the other. I do not belittle what the hon. Gentleman says, and is important that we recognise that spectrum. I am sure that he can argue the other way as well if he chooses. He is presumably making a devil’s advocate point or giving perhaps a strongly held viewpoint. It is a good point, but it is a point of debate. That is what we are here to do—to enlighten and illuminate that debate.

Steel Safeguards

Mark Garnier Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I am very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the specifics of those businesses in his constituency. I have met many steel producers and downstream users, and they repeatedly raised the category 12A issue, which is why I decided to extend the tariff rate quota very substantially to create enough headroom to ensure the tariff risks do not affect those businesses. I look forward to discussing that with him more fully.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will understand that these very complex issues need proper parliamentary scrutiny, and the best way to do that is through the Select Committee process. I completely understand her reasons for not being at the International Trade Committee this morning. I have known her for seven years, and she and her fellow Ministers are not shy of parliamentary scrutiny, but there is no doubt that the relationship between the International Trade Committee and the Department for International Trade is not what it should be. Having been a Minister in the Department, I know that some outstanding civil servants work there, but it needs to be beefed up.

I am the Chairman of the Committees on Arms Export Controls, which have a similar problem with the Department for International Trade. We have to work hard to make sure these relationships work well. Parliamentary scrutiny is important, and we need to make sure we are demonstrably getting it right.

India-UK Trade Negotiations

Mark Garnier Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Bob Blackman]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her intervention. India has a young population, full of entrepreneurs and people who want to succeed, and with a growing and establishing middle class and, indeed, upper class. The potential for a wide range of exports gives us many opportunities to draw on for the overall benefit of this country.

UK consumers, producers and businesses will all gain from a free trade agreement. We must maintain our high environmental standards on labour, food safety and animal welfare in any free trade agreement, not just with India but across all our different agreements. It is also important to protect the NHS when we negotiate, as we do not want it to be compromised in any shape or form. We want to secure the best possible agreement, and the potential interim agreement could deliver early benefits. I look forward to the Minister alluding to that agreement, as well as to the strategic opportunities I have mentioned.

We share a common set of values. India is the world’s largest democracy and has long maintained its support for international co-operation and democratic Government. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) said, there have been huge advances over the past few years in the economy of India, the rights of Indians to work, and for villages across India to gain benefits from its trading position.

We work together in various multilateral fora, including the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation and the Commonwealth. In May 2021 we committed to an enhanced trade partnership, which could double trade by 2030, strengthening our relationship and invigorating our respective economies. That is part of a 2030 road map that covers the full spectrum of our relationship with India.

We have strong cultural links. Some 1.5 million British nationals are of Indian origin. I see one or two here in the Chamber, which demonstrates the role that the British Indian population plays. We support over half a million jobs in each other’s economies, so an agreement would further develop that deep-seated relationship. It would also help put global Britain at the heart of the Indo-Pacific region—one of our key strategies—which now represents 40% of global GDP and has most of the world’s fastest growing economies. As they expand, it is key that we have access to their markets.

An agreement with India would complement our other commitments, such as those to Australia and New Zealand, and the ongoing negotiations with the other 11 members of the CPTPP. Tilting towards the Indo-Pacific would diversify UK trade, make our supply chains more resilient and make us less vulnerable—particularly on a day like today—to political and economic shocks around the globe. It would also cement our position as a world leader in free trade and strengthen democracies around the world, which can only be a gain for India and for us.

I will not go through the many benefits of free trade agreements, as I know a number of hon. Members want to contribute to the debate. But let us be clear: reducing barriers will make trade easier and cheaper for UK exporters, as well as improve choice for UK consumers.

In 2019, India imported £5.35 billion-worth of goods from the UK, of which £5.24 billion was in lines subject to tariffs. That gives a feel for how much opportunity exists. Removing those tariffs would enable us to double our exports to India. India’s middle class, which I mentioned earlier, is expected to double from 30 million people in 2019 to 60 million by 2030, reaching nearly 250 million in 2050. If that is not an opportunity, I do not know what is.

We will have huge opportunities to sell high-quality iconic brands and products. Removing tariffs and giving greater clarity on legal certainty would support our UK businesses, such as those in the automotive, agrifood, machinery and pharmaceutical industries, to name but a few. That would also mean our manufacturers saving costs by getting cheaper parts for products, while our consumers in the UK would benefit from the variety and affordability of different products.

The opportunities for UK services and investment are huge. At the moment, they amount to £3.2 billion. The fact that the expanding services sector in India is expected to reach 54% of its economy demonstrates the opportunity for us as a trusted partnership.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a strong point about how reducing barriers to entry will increase trading opportunities with India. Does he agree, however, that it is the job of the Department for International Trade to do not only trade policy but trade promotion? The Tradeshow Access Programme and other good innovations are required to support British businesses that are seeking to take advantage of opportunities. I look forward to the Minister’s explanation of what goes on in his closing speech.

[Bob Blackman]

My hon. Friend is a former Trade Minister who knows such things all too well. Those go hand in hand—it is no good having a free trade agreement if we do nothing with it. Indeed, before we get to the free trade agreement, we have to use the opportunities we have in the diaspora here and all the other opportunities for trade.

There is also a great opportunity in the digital sector. The Government of India aim to have a $1 trillion online economy by 2025. We expect internet penetration in India to hit 50%—or 622 million users—so the free trade agreement represents a huge opportunity for businesses in the UK, such as those in tech, artificial intelligence and cyber-security.

A trade agreement will not only build on our relationship but give young Indians the opportunity to come to this country to study—to get their degrees, master’s degrees and PhDs—and to return to India to use the knowledge that they have gained in friendship with the UK and to expand India’s economy even more. We already have excellent educational co-operation, in particular with our higher education facilities, but I want to see us do better. I want us to get back to the position where the UK is where India chooses to send its young people to for study. We have slipped behind in recent years, and myths have developed about caps on numbers. Those are problems to resolve—we know that—but nevertheless we want to return to the position whereby we are the place of choice.

Indian-owned businesses in the UK employ more than 95,000 people. Some 29,200 are employed in the west midlands alone—at least one west midlands MP, the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), is present—with 20,700 in London and 10,700 in Wales. Indian investment alone created 15,000 new jobs in the past three years. That demonstrates our opportunities to expand. Furthermore, India’s import requirements are set to be worth £1.38 trillion in 2035, which gives us an opportunity—if we can reduce the high tariff barriers—to utilise our capability to provide a high level of services and good-quality goods.

The tariffs paid on exports to India total £49 million a year. The tariffs for automotive manufacturers stand at 125%, so a trade agreement would obviously benefit them. In 2019, 9,900 UK businesses exported goods to India, 98% of which were small or medium-sized enterprises. That demonstrates that it is not only big companies but small companies that could gain.

We are a global leader on climate action, and the Government are obviously maintaining our high standards of environmental protection within trade agreements. An agreement with India could represent a huge opportunity for our world-leading renewable energy industry. The Government of India recognise the need to transition towards renewable gas and plan to install 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by the end of this year. Our expertise can help them to achieve that and to remove their dependence on coal and other fossil fuels. Although we already have a productive trading relationship, it would also help us to bounce back from the pandemic and to invigorate trade and investment services.

The reality is that our negotiation stance needs to be clear and above board, and we need to be clear that India was the UK’s 15th largest trading partner in 2020. As I have said, trade was worth £23.3 billion and our exports worth £8.5 billion in 2019. That makes India the 10th largest export destination for the UK. Outside of the EU, that clearly provides us with a huge opportunity. Imports were worth £14.8 billion in 2019, which was 2.1% of our imports, making India the UK’s fifth single largest import supplier. India is now the fifth largest economy in the world and the third biggest investor in the UK. We have slipped down the list on investment in India, and we need to put that right as we go forward. We were the third biggest investor in India, but I think we are now fifth or perhaps even sixth. India is the second most populous country in the world, with 1.38 billion people back in 2020, which amounts to 18% of the world’s population. I am throwing out a lot of stats, because we need to understand the huge benefit that can result from having a free trade agreement with India.

Obviously, under covid, both our economy and India’s economy contracted, but as they expand we will have an opportunity to get involved in further investment in India. At the moment, India is projected to overtake Germany and become the world’s fourth largest economy by 2030, and it could leapfrog Japan to become the third largest by 2050. The opportunity there is huge, and India has obviously been the engine of global growth over recent years, with its economy growing by 7% a year. If we could grow our economy by 7%,- wouldn’t we bite people’s hands off to achieve it? Clearly, that is going to be the position. I have mentioned India’s middle-class market, which is growing fast and which is a huge opportunity for us overall.

With a free trade agreement with India, we can obviously support jobs across the UK. If our exports to India grow, we can grow our businesses, and SMEs will grow as a direct result. In 2019, something like 1,000 Indian-owned local business units were operating in the UK, so clearly the opportunities are there and the demand for imported goods and services will grow as we use the living bridge between the United Kingdom and India.

Obviously, the success of exports to India will depend on how well the world economy goes and how our relationship grows with it. As I understand it, the second round of negotiations is due to take place between 7 March and 18 March, with a shared ambition to conclude negotiations by the end of this year. I wish those negotiations well, and I hope the Minister will be able to update us on the position when he responds to the debate.

Looking at the various parts of our economy, there are huge benefits right across the UK to having a trade agreement with India. One of our hugest exports is Scotch whisky. That has a huge impact. Those of our Scottish friends who are present—the hon. Members for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), for Glasgow East (David Linden) and for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes)—know that they will gain as a result of a global Britain free trade agreement. If they were to engage in foolish behaviour and leave the United Kingdom, they would lose that free trade agreement and once again face tariffs of 150%. Indeed, the export of Irish whiskey is a vital part of the Irish economy and will clearly be—

UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement

Mark Garnier Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I am glad the right hon. Gentleman supports international trade, but I come away slightly less than enthused that he is genuine in that, and I hope we will be able to persuade him in the months and years ahead that the Government’s commitment to giving UK businesses the opportunity to share their incredible goods and services around the world is absolutely the focus of the work we are doing. I will try to cover all the points he raised, but if I miss any, I will be happy to write and confirm them.

On quotas, let us be clear—I highlighted this in my statement—that the vast majority of beef and sheepmeat being sold from Australia is going to the Asia-Pacific for the time being, and the quotas have been brought in on a very clear and slow trajectory to allow our farmers to consider the markets. Really importantly, we are looking much more widely, and this is the first of what I hope will be many deals; indeed, this is about not only free trade agreements, but the removal of various barriers to exports—things such as the lamb export ban that has been in place with the US for over 20 years. Just before Christmas, we agreed that it would be removed so that our lamb farmers would be able to export some of the finest lamb in the world—I speak with a personal interest, from Northumbria farmers’ perspective—into US markets for the first time in two decades. So there are some really exciting things coming, and the Australia deal is the first of many deals that will afford our businesses, including our farmers, many new market opportunities.

On standards, the animal welfare chapter is the first one the Australians have ever done. Their commitment to moving forwards—as the right hon. Gentleman says, there is the non-regression piece—and to working with us is really important. In the same way that the environmental chapter does, that commitment shows their very clear policy objective as a nation to move forwards. The environmental chapter is, again, the first they have ever committed to, and in it they have committed to the Paris agreement. As we were in the final throes of the negotiations—I was very much involved, and it was a great honour, at COP26 with the President of COP26—Australia brought forward a net zero commitment, which is something that many have failed to do in Australian politics. That commitment, alongside this environmental chapter, shows a very strong commitment by the Australians to move forward on this issue. We will work together, not only as mutual friends and allies, but with other countries to help them meet their net zero commitment. That is a really important commitment.

This is a broad, liberal agreement; we talk about tariff-free access to the UK, but we also have tariff-free access to Australian markets. This is a broad, liberalising, fair and well-balanced trade deal between partners who want to work together as closely as possible in the decades ahead.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her achievement in this trade deal? She is absolutely right that, despite the fact that we have signed 70 trade deals, this is the first ab initio trade deal that we have signed as an independent nation. I hope there will be many more agreements, including with the Kingdom of Thailand, for which I am the Prime Minister’s trade envoy.

My right hon. Friend rightly talks about the scrutiny process for these trade deals, and as a member of the International Trade Committee I can confirm that it is a fantastically complicated proposition to try to go through these deals. She mentioned three items that are incredibly important to the scrutiny process, but can she give a more specific indication of when we expect the Trade and Agriculture Commission report and the Government’s section 42 report and when the CRaG process will be triggered? Could she also consider publishing the Government’s negotiating positions in future trade deals, so that we can scrutinise and compare what is achieved against what was intended?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is a former Minister in the Department, for all his work and for his continued passion and commitment in driving forward the UK’s opportunities to find these fantastic trade deals. He is now doing great work with Thailand, and it is interesting that we already have nearly £5 billion-worth of bilateral trade with Thailand. So many countries are knocking at the door saying, “We want to do more. We want to have better deals with you.” That is a really exciting and strong message. Now that we are on the global platform, those countries want to do that trade, because they know that we have the best businesses in the world and they want to have a close relationship with us. I think it is very exciting.

In answer to my hon. Friend’s question on parliamentary scrutiny, he is not wrong. It is a relatively complex journey that we are about to take with our first deal. We anticipate that there will be a period probably of several months before we lay everything before Parliament. We have asked the Trade and Agriculture Commission to crack on with its review, and once it reports back to me, I can submit the section 42 measure required by the legislation, and I hope that his Committee and the Committee in the other place will submit their own perspectives once they have had a chance to look through—I apologise for this, but in a way I do not—what is a very large tome of nearly 2,000 pages.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Garnier Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

What progress she has made on securing trade deals with ASEAN countries.

[The Secretary of State for International Trade (Elizabeth Truss)]

Last year, we secured trade deals with Vietnam and Singapore. This month, I submitted our application to CPTPP—the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership—a huge free trade area covering £9 trillion of GDP, which contains four ASEAN countries.

[Mark Garnier [V]]

First, I congratulate my right hon. Friend on everything she and her Department have achieved in terms of signing trade deals across the world. It is certainly important that the UK continues to engage in deepening its trading relationships with its close allies and trading partners, such as Australia, New Zealand and the United States, but there are also many other significant trading partners and friends across the globe, such as the Kingdom of Thailand, where I serve as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy. Could my right hon. Friend see her way to prioritising Thailand in the next round of countries to engage in formal free trade agreement negotiations, so that we can formalise our trading relationship with this long-standing and valued trading partner?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of Thailand. We have a bilateral relationship worth £5 billion a year and he is doing a fantastic job as our trade envoy to that great country. We are currently conducting a joint trade review to identify priorities in agriculture, pharmaceuticals and food and drink, and this is strong groundwork for a future FTA negotiation.

UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement

Mark Garnier Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

By rights, the Chair of the International Trade Committee, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), should be making this speech, but he is stuck in the Western Isles and unfortunately cannot be here. I am joined by a number of Committee colleagues, however, and I am sure that we will make similar speeches.

I start by thanking the Government for how much effort they have put into helping the Committee’s scrutiny process. There is no doubt that, at every opportunity when we have asked the Secretary of State to help out, she has come along and been very helpful to us, and has been keen to help the process of scrutiny. I will say more about that in a minute.

I echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) said about the extraordinary amount of work that has been done by the Department and its Ministers. I also point out that I was part of the ministerial team when he set up the Department, and the reason it is so qualified to do this now is the incredibly hard work that he put in as Secretary of State. He had the foresight to take on the trade negotiators and Crawford Falconer to lead the trade policy team to make the Department fit to do all these trade deals and roll-overs.

To turn to our report, we categorically congratulate the Government on their achievements and on helping us out, but I will raise one or two points. There is a big argument about whether this is a roll-over deal or a new deal. Actually, it seems to be a bit of a hybrid deal. Although if this deal had not been done there would be no deal at all, it seems to have been based on JEEPA—the Japan-EU economic partnership agreement—so it is a bit of one and a bit of the other. When it comes to scrutiny, that means that we have tended to look at some economic forecasts that compare it with the WTO and some economic forecasts that compare it with JEEPA.

Looking at how it compares with JEEPA is incredibly important, because it signifies what it will be like when we modify all the roll-over deals that we have made so far. For example, CETA has been rolled over, but at some point we will want to improve on that deal. What we have done here, with the improvement on JEEPA, signifies what can be achieved elsewhere, which is obviously something that we will be taking a close look at.

When it comes to scrutiny, there is no doubt that it is an incredible challenge for a Select Committee, and indeed Parliament, to really get into the nuts and bolts of the whole deal. It has been pointed out that CRaG lasts for 21 days and we are now on day 15. The good news is that when we asked for a debate, the Department was keen to table one, so we got a debate. It is worth bearing in mind that, for Select Committee members trying to look into these documents—although we were given them a week earlier than anybody else, which was very helpful—when they sit down on a Friday afternoon and see an impact assessment, a parliamentary report, an explanatory memorandum and 57 documents, it is a huge amount to get through. It certainly messes up one’s weekend.

That means it is incredibly important that we get a huge amount of feedback from everybody else who is being affected by this. As I say, it is very good that the Department has been open with us, but the scrutiny is none the less quite a challenge. We have to think carefully, as we come to more complicated deals, about how we will be able to do it. As I say, however, the Secretary of State has been very flexible, and I am sure that we will have an opportunity to talk to her about it in future.

I do not particularly want to go into the content of the deal, but there is a point to be made about how trade deals are incredibly important in how they lean on one another. The hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith) mentioned the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Certainly, when Mike Hawes came in, I had the opportunity to ask him whether, if we did not get a trade deal with the European Union, that would affect Japanese manufacturers in the UK, to which his answer was that he did not think so. Certainly when I was a Minister looking after that sector, I was acutely aware of that.

The bottom line is that those manufacturers have been in the UK for 25 or 30 years—a long time—so they are not going to get up and leave. It is incredibly important, however, to remember that trade deals lean on one another and people need to have confidence in future relationships. It is also worth bearing in mind that, when we do a deal with Japan, that makes us more attractive to those who might come to the UK to export to Japan. If we join CPTPP, the same applies. We have to understand that all trade deals have more implications than perhaps the immediate economic impact that people look at.

Many other hon. Members wish to speak, so I will finish by thanking the Department again for its co-operation with the Select Committee. If it carries on like this, we will have an extraordinarily wholesome and good relationship.

Women in the Commonwealth: Trade and Investment

Mark Garnier Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Theo Clarke]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I was very pleased that our Prime Minister made a commitment to support 12 years of quality education for girls around the world. Later in my speech, I will tackle some of the barriers that women face in developing countries.

Empowering women in the economy and closing gender gaps in the world of work is key to achieving the 2030 agenda for sustainable development and the sustainable development goals, particularly goal 5 on gender equality. The Commonwealth is an especially unique forum that the UK can leverage to further promote gender equality and bolster women’s economic empowerment in developing countries. With 54 countries and more than 2.4 billion people, the Commonwealth offers a more unified and structured network, sharing historical ties, values and language, and allows the UK to amplify its commitment to gender equality.

Commonwealth countries are more likely to trade and invest with each other than with the rest of the world. Collectively, Commonwealth members are less protectionist than other countries. Reduced trade costs and similarities in business, regulatory and administrative systems underpin the “Commonwealth advantage”. According to the International Monetary Fund’s forecasts, nine out of the top 25 fastest-growing economies are members of the Commonwealth, which demonstrates the trade potential of the group.

The UK chocolate industry is worth at least £4 billion each year, yet most cocoa farmers live in abject poverty. A typical farmer, such as those in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, which account for 60% of the world’s cocoa production, earns less than 75p a day. That is well below the World Bank’s extreme poverty line of approximately £1.40 per day. When visiting farmers in west Africa, I was struck to learn that only 25% of women cocoa farmers own their land, and and that on average they work about a third more than men when childcare and domestic chores are taken into account.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point about how we can help people in extreme poverty in those countries. A problem, however, is that if we create new tariffs across the world for things such as cocoa, we may unwittingly allow greater competition against the farmers she describes, inadvertently undercutting their salaries rather than helping them into prosperity through trade.

[Theo Clarke]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Now that we have left the European Union, we have an opportunity to look at global Britain and our standing in the world. As he says, it is important that we do not undercut farmers in developing countries.

This year, the Fairtrade Foundation launched a campaign called “She Deserves” to achieve living incomes for cocoa farmers in west Africa, particularly women. I was very pleased to see people in Parliament, in Stafford and across Britain supporting Fairtrade fortnight earlier this month.

I will share with colleagues an example of a Fairtrade project that has made a real difference to people’s lives. The ABOCFA co-operative, which I visited last year, is the only organic Fairtrade-certified cocoa co-operative in Ghana. It has a total membership of 924 and produces more than 1,000 megatonnes of raw organic cocoa beans. The co-operative has signed a five-year memorandum of understanding with its current buyer, Tony’s Chocolonely—its products are stocked in British supermarkets—to supply it with Fairtrade-certified raw beans from last year’s season. As a nation of chocolate lovers, particularly in the west midlands, which of course is the home of Cadbury’s, the UK consumes more chocolate per person than any other European country. The UK could play a very powerful role in bringing about change to ensure that those farmers have a dignified life and receive a proper living income.

During the 2018 CHOGM in the UK, Commonwealth countries launched the Commonwealth connectivity agenda for trade and investment, which was a commitment to increase opportunities for women to trade internationally and to break down gender barriers in all sectors. The UK Government should be congratulated on the great work that they have already done on trade and investment and gender equality. I am thinking specifically of the SheTrades Commonwealth initiative, which was announced at CHOGM in 2018. I urge the Government to set out a five-step action plan as part of global Britain to scale up our efforts to promote the economic empowerment of women through trade and investment in the Commonwealth.

First, on female economic empowerment, I urge the Government to increase their investment in the SheTrades Commonwealth initiative. Following the successful UK-Africa investment summit, the Government have already announced £3.5 million of UK aid to support SheTrades, on top of the initial £7 million pledged in 2018 by the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). I very much welcome the commitment, but the Government should go further to build on success and should increase their commitment. SheTrades has shown how investing in women has a clear multiplier effect. Results show that women entrepreneurs, on average, employ more women and invest more in community projects.

How do women do in international trade? The International Trade Centre’s large-scale survey looked at the extent of the challenge, and estimated that only one out of five exporting companies is women-led. That disparity occurs not only in developing countries but across Europe. Women-led enterprises are generally concentrated in less dynamic sectors than male-led ones, and women-led enterprises are involved in both import and export. In employment, job segregation means that women tend to work in lower paid jobs.

What are the reasons for that disadvantage? Women face unequal access to finance, skills, property and business networks, and some of those disadvantages can be explained by the fact that women often run smaller businesses and have other gender-specific barriers to entry. I have seen at first hand in numerous developing countries how financial innovation can be used to make credit facilities more accessible to women living in poor and rural communities. Lack of access to reliable and feasible loans is one of the major barriers to entry for women wanting to become economically independent.

Village savings and loan associations harness the existing social structure in villages to bring together people to make a financial contribution and save money as a community. That is a good example of funds being used as credit facilities and of a way for female entrepreneurs to get funding in locations where there are no traditional banking facilities. In Uganda, for example, more than 15,000 such savings groups have been established, and local people have now benefited from financial training. That is a good example of why savings groups are a key tool to promote female economic empowerment, so I hope the Government look at supporting such initiatives throughout the Commonwealth.

We need to reform the business, policy and legal ecosystem to ensure that it is not stifling female entrepreneurship and participation in trade. We need much better data to understand the barriers that prevent women from trading in the first place—what it is that is holding them back. We need to ensure that women have a voice when policies are being designed and implemented. It is also critical to acknowledge the work of the private sector, which has an important role to play in mentoring and training women to supply chain diversity programmes. All companies must be encouraged to create concrete opportunities for female entrepreneurs.

Secondly, the UK should champion an MBA scholarship initiative for 500 young women entrepreneurs and business leaders of the future from Commonwealth developing countries. That would give an opportunity for young female entrepreneurs to further their skills and to grow their businesses.

Thirdly, I congratulate CDC on its excellent commitment to close the economic gap between men and women. Forums such as the gender-smart investing summit in London have been successful in promoting collaboration between development finance institutions and encouraging them to work together. CDC is also encouraging women to be more economically active.

To give a specific example, the Chemi & Cotex company in Tanzania manufactures the leading brand of toothpaste in east Africa. I was impressed to learn that women now make up nearly 50% of its workforce. All the women who head up the sales branches join the company in junior roles and develop their skills within the business. That type of outreach programme is vital to help women to participate fully in the local economy. We must leverage the power of female entrepreneurship and continue to promote gender equality.

Fourthly, the UK should organise a business forum that brings together women entrepreneurs from across the Commonwealth. It would be a great opportunity for women entrepreneurs to share best practice and to forge networks, but also a chance to reflect on and take stock of the progress that we have made with different trade and gender initiatives, to determine the next steps for the future, and to reflect on the 2017 WTO Buenos Aires declaration on trade and women’s economic empowerment.

Finally, the UK should appoint a new special envoy on women’s economic empowerment in the Commonwealth to work at international level across the Department for International Development, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Trade. That would be an extremely powerful way to champion gender equality further. The new envoy could work with the new WTO working group on women and trade, which is expected to be agreed at the upcoming WTO ministerial conference in June of this year. It would allow an opportunity for a co-ordinated and harmonised UK approach truly to unleash the potential of women entrepreneurship in Commonwealth developing countries.

I believe that 2020 is an important year for women’s economic empowerment. It marks 25 years since the adoption of the Beijing declaration and platform for action, while little more than two years has passed since 127 countries launched the 2017 WTO Buenos Aires declaration on trade and women’s economic empowerment. Ahead of the June CHOGM in Rwanda, the issue must continue to be high on the agenda of the various economic groupings in the Commonwealth, from the G20 and the African Continental Free Trade Agreement to APEC, or Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation. The UK has made a strong commitment to the trade and gender equality agenda, and I hope that in 2020 the UK Government will continue to build on the success of the African investment summit, scaling up that ambition even further.

UK-US Trade Deal

Mark Garnier Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s agreement with me that removing barriers to trade is good for everybody—it is good internationally and good here in the UK. One thing he fails to point out, though, is that there are huge benefits in regulatory freedom and flexibility. As the UK is able to decide its own rules and regulations, we can be more nimble and agile in the modern world—a key benefit of our leaving the European Union and having a Canada-style deal with the EU.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

I agree with my right hon. Friend’s comment that the US is very excited about this trade deal—not just Washington politics, but across the whole United States.

I want to press the food standards point. The US is the biggest exporter of agricultural products in the world. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it achieves that through selling products that the world wants and not through forcing unwanted products on unwilling consumers?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that good export champions are companies that suit the markets that they serve. We will maintain our standards about what we believe to be right for UK consumers in line with the values of the farmers and people of the UK. It will be up to those that supply us—the US, the EU or anybody else—to fit with those standards. That is the nature of trade agreements.

Trade Remedy Measures: UK Interests

Mark Garnier Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

There were several completely different issues in that question. I think that the hon. Gentleman is to some extent confusing the issue of most favoured nation day-one tariffs with the tariffs that come from trade remedies. No remedies could be applied to the United Kingdom unless we were in breach of WTO rules on subsidies and dumping. I assure him that under a Conservative Government that is simply not going to happen.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. Trade remedies are an incredibly important measure for the protection of British industries, but they should not be used as protectionism. Can I urge my right hon. Friend that as we move forward as an independent nation free of the European Union we use our seat on the World Trade Organisation to highlight and champion the cause of free trade around the world?

[Dr Fox]

Like my hon. Friend, I am, I would like to think, a great champion of free trade, but that does not mean a free-for-all. There have to be rules to ensure that there is fair trade in the global trading system. That means that those countries that purposely overproduce, dump and subsidise, and are therefore not part of a fair trading system, should be penalised for doing so.