Trade Bill (First sitting)

Matt Western Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Q We will now hear oral evidence from James Ashton-Bell, head of trade and investment at the CBI; Chris Southworth, secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce UK; and Martin McTague, national policy chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses. We were also due to hear from Tony Burke, assistant general secretary of Unite the Union, but I understand that he has been caught up in an evacuation and will get here as soon as he can.

For this sitting, we have until 11.25 am. Would each of the witnesses please introduce themselves for the record?

James Ashton-Bell: I am James Ashton-Bell, head of international trade and investment at the Confederation of British Industry.

Chris Southworth: Chris Southworth, secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce here in the UK.

Martin McTague: I am Martin McTague, national policy director for the Federation of Small Businesses.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Q This is a question for Mr Southworth. Does the Bill as it currently stands have the support of businesses?

Chris Southworth: There are four key elements within the Bill that are broadly in the right direction of travel around setting up a trade remedies Bill, sharing data and so on, but there are missing elements—I think we agree with a much wider community of non-governmental organisations and unions—where we need a more inclusive approach to dealing with trade, more democratic oversight and more policy connectivity. We are speaking in a context of G20, where there is a very public commitment to developing a free trade model that works for everyone. That is missing in the current Trade Bill.

[Matt Western]

Q Mr Ashton-Bell?

James Ashton-Bell: I think we start from the place that the Bill does a lot of really important things for business, in terms of providing continuity. Continuity is absolutely key in all business leaders’ minds when it comes to our trade relationship with the EU, but also with third countries and the World Trade Organisation. The Bill goes a long way toward providing assurances with regard to the WTO on things like procurement, ensuring—as you have heard—that trade remedies are available and provisions for replication of free trade agreements that we currently enjoy through the EU.

I think business is looking for more in the longer term, and there is a broader question about whether or not this is the right vehicle to use to create the kinds of structure that they need around consultation. Any major trade country in the world has extensive and formalised ways of engaging with civil society to ensure that they get the maximum amount of input into trade policy that they need. The question of whether or not this is the right legislative vehicle to create such a structure and such a process is one that I will leave to Members, but business is looking for those kinds of structure, and if not now, when?

[Matt Western]

Q So you both agree that you would be looking for more consultation and more transparency. Is that fair?

James Ashton-Bell: Yes.

[Matt Western]

Q Mr McTague?

Martin McTague: Our clear priority is the transition process. It is vitally important that there is no cliff edge at this very early stage. Our members, and the small business community as a whole, see this as an enabling Bill, something that will help a smooth transition, so in principle we welcome it.

[Matt Western]

Q May I link to that and ask about your experience with other countries, where you may have visibility? How do they do this better and what should we be considering to include in the Bill?

Chris Southworth: There is a general recognition across the international community since the EU referendum—of course, that was followed by Trump and further issues across the G7—that the existing models for handling trade need to change. That is because there is a disconnect within society and over wider communities and regions, particularly in the lower-skilled areas, where they have not benefited from the growth of trade.

Everybody is looking for exemplars. Some countries have more structured set-ups, such as the US and New Zealand, where it is much less around the ad hoc consultation and engagement that we have in the UK. That is one key point to make. There are definitely lessons to learn from elsewhere, including the EU, I have to say. The propositions in the Trade Bill are a lesser option than what already exists within the EU. Although the EU itself can improve, there are elements of their structures that would work well for the UK, going forward. That is a key point to make.

[The Chair]

May I interrupt to welcome Tony Burke, who is the assistant general secretary of Unite the Union? We are very grateful to you.

Tony Burke: Apologies for being delayed. St Pancras and King’s Cross tubes were closed. I have done some fleet footwork to get here.

[The Chair]

We appreciate that and are grateful that you managed to get here.

[Matt Western]

Q Mr Ashton-Bell, would you like to comment?

James Ashton-Bell: I support everything that Chris has just said. For us, we look at the spectrum of different formal ways of engaging civil society. At one extreme you have the United States, which has an incredibly elaborate set of technical committees, numbering several hundred different members of civil society, to provide technical assistance to officials. At the other extreme there are less formalised systems for economies that tend to be a little bit less complex and tend to be significantly smaller than ourselves.

Business would come down somewhere along the lines of being closer to the US model than something less formalised for a less complicated economy that is also quite a bit smaller. Does that mean we need everything that the US model has? No, absolutely. We need a UK-specific bespoke model but it would probably be quite elaborate, to ensure that it takes in every business and wider civil society from across every region of the UK, across every size and shape of organisation and across all the different types of technical expertise, which crosses many different policy issues—everything from intellectual property to issues of data.

[Matt Western]

Q You see this as crucial to getting a good deal?

James Ashton-Bell: I struggle to understand how any Government, engaging in trade policy, be it at multilateral or bilateral level, would be able to get the best possible outcome for that negotiation unless they were using the full strength of their economy, pooling from the best minds that exist within and outside Government.

[Matt Western]

Q Mr McTague, do you have a view?

Martin McTague: It is difficult to draw parallels with any other country withdrawing from a 40-year relationship. The view that we have taken in the past is that consultation has worked well, inasmuch as the small business community, which we think is a vital part of the economy, has been listened to, and we would hope that that would happen in future. However, there is a temptation, because the bigger corporates sometimes have more access to Government, that small business does not really get listened to. This component, we think, is absolutely vital in the development of the policy.

[Mr Prisk]

Q Can I ask the witnesses about the Trade Remedies Authority? In your opinion, how effective do you think it could be, given that the Bill provides a framework? I appreciate there are lots of details to fill in later. How independent do you think that authority can be, given the way in which the Bill is currently drafted? I will start with FSB and work my way along.

Martin McTague: At the moment our view is that the early stages of development of TRA look encouraging, but we know they are a consultation. We know that they are looking at a variety of different options, and we are willing to wait for the consultation process before we get into a committed decision.

Chris Southworth: The principles are there in terms of setting up a trade role and it is as much to do with the speed around that. I would echo the same thoughts: there needs to be a lot more consultation around them and there needs to be clearer evidence of learning best practice from others. We are not the only country proposing a Trade Remedies Authority. I would start with the idea that having a trade remedies authority and the core concepts that exist in this Bill feel broadly right.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Matt Western, very quickly. We have got literally two minutes left.

[Matt Western]

Q Thank you, Chair. I have a quick question to Mr Ashton-Bell. Yesterday, Carolyn Fairbairn made a very good speech, I believe. She was talking about the CBI quite rightly seeking a good Brexit. I hate to put you on the spot but I am sure you have had time to reflect on it. In your view, or the CBI’s view, does the Bill as it stands deliver a good Brexit? Or, what is it missing, other than what you have said so far this morning?

James Ashton-Bell: I do not believe the Bill as a vehicle can deliver a good Brexit in any scenario. There are too many Bills and pieces of legislation that are necessary to deliver a good Brexit. This is one piece of the puzzle. There is a lot of detail that is not in here. Our position is not necessarily that that has to be in here. There are other pieces, like the consultation issue, that we believe need to be formalised in legislation. That could happen at a later date.

Our concern is that to deliver a good Brexit we are going to have so many pieces of legislation in a very truncated period of time. A lot of pressure will be put on Parliament to rush through legislation without properly scrutinising it, or legislation will not make it through. Either way, we get a bad outcome. Our question comes back to the one I started with. If there are essential elements for your trade policy, if they are not in this Bill, why not, because you have it in front of the House anyway?

[The Chair]

Order. That brings us to the end of our time allotted to the Committee to ask questions. I thank our witnesses on behalf of the Committee for their evidence, in particular Mr Burke, for the tortuous journey he had getting here.