Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

We have now signed three of these deals. Last week, we brought Utah a bit closer and we have agreed to start negotiations with California. As a practical example, an offshore wind delegation went to see Governor Cooper of North Carolina just a few months after the deal. We had the first meeting of the working group on Indiana last Monday, at which we talked about increasing the opportunities for UK firms to bid into state procurement markets in the United States. As we know, the US is a very federal system and some state procurement markets offer great potential for companies across the UK, including in my hon. Friend’s Oxfordshire constituency.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

We have recently signed several agreements with Indonesia, which is good news, and the follow-up is now critical. Will my right hon. Friend confirm, first, that the next round of Joint Economic and Trade Committee talks will happen here in London in the first quarter of next year? Secondly, will the new Government-to-Government framework have Indonesia as a priority? Thirdly, and perhaps most intriguingly, can we move to negotiations on an FTA as soon as possible?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on being a doughty champion of Indonesia and on being such a good trade envoy. He is right that we want to have a JETCO early next year. The Department is liaising closely with its counterparts in Indonesia, and I would be delighted to invite him to assist us in all our engagements to make sure we see all the good things that he wants to happen.

UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The new free trade agreement is another step forward in our commitment to the Indo-Pacific region, and I congratulate the Secretary of State. What are the next steps in our application to join the CPTPP and what progress has been made on a new framework for Government-to-Government contracts which, as she knows, is a live issue at the moment for at least one deal in the region?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The CPTPP process is in play. We put in our application last year and we are being vetted. I am not sure how best to describe it—it is a bit like passing a set of exam questions, and we have to submit our answers. We are in the final throes of that phase, which is good, and we hope to be able to move to market discussions in the very near future. In relation to my hon. Friend’s question about the new framework for Government-to-Government contracts, we are looking at those in detail at the moment and I will report back in due course.

Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con) [V]]

It is great to be the tail-end Charlie of this debate on the CPTPP. In this year of the Indo-Pacific pivot, the Government have already made huge steps forward to strengthen our partnerships across one of the world’s most exciting areas. We have a new trade deal with India, which by the way, is our second-largest investor over the last 12 months, with inward investment up 25%, and a significant knock-on impact on our jobs. There is the joint economic trade committees with Thailand and Indonesia, the agreement to have dialogue partner status with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the first ever completely new independent free trade agreement with Australia, and one coming up with New Zealand, and now agreement for the CPTPP trade negotiations to start.

Some will—and indeed have—poured scorn on the differences that each of those steps will make individually, but collectively it is very hard to dismiss the fact that the overall impact of the Indo-Pacific pivot is already considerable and the opportunities ahead even greater. The CPTPP with 11 countries is already a large market, with supply chain diversification benefits from its rules of origin, but the potential is there for more than four ASEAN members to join, and South Korea as well; and of course the biggest of all would be the US, which would bring an area of huge importance to the free-trading world.

Yes, of course, as we go forward, the Government will need to address the investor dispute resolution and agricultural concerns of this House and our constituents, but I hope that Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition will not continue to peddle the myth that the NHS will somehow be auctioned to a fictional Pacific region buyer. Let us instead recognise that trade is good, that it will benefit our exporters and our consumers, that the trans-Pacific partnership is a huge step forward in our strategic direction, and that the potential is absolutely the right one for the benefit of all parts of the United Kingdom.

Agricultural Exports from Australia: Tariffs

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

We are the COP26 chairs this year, and we look forward to full Australian participation. The Australian Government are absolutely committed to combating climate change. There may even be something on that in this agreement, which we are negotiating at the moment. In terms of where Australia is overall on our standards, it is worth bearing in mind that it does have high animal welfare standards. It is ranked five out of five by the World Organisation for Animal Health on its evaluation of the performance of veterinary services, and it is worth pointing out that Australian standards are high, but I repeat that there will be no compromise and no change as a result of this free trade agreement to our own food standards.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The Australian free trade agreement is a key step forward for both global Britain and the Indo-Pacific pivot, as well as a stepping stone towards a successful trans-Pacific partnership application. There are wide opportunities for Britain with a key member of the Commonwealth family, but does my right hon. Friend agree, first, that hormone-injected beef is illegal in this country, wherever it comes from? Secondly, does he agree that a combination of staggering the introduction of tariffs and targeted DEFRA assistance will ensure that upland farmers do not suffer in the alarmist way suggested by anti-free trade Opposition parties?

[Greg Hands]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Hormone beef will remain illegal, because we will not be changing our import standards. I do not believe that this deal represents a fundamental threat to UK farmers, and it certainly does not compromise our high standards. As has already been pointed out, any changes for sensitive goods, such as beef and lamb, can be staged. A typical Australian free trade agreement has stages over 10, 12 or 15 years. He is right that there is an opportunity here: a springboard to CPTPP, which I know he understands well as our trade envoy to many parts of south-east Asia.

CPTPP

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Like others, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) on securing this debate about a cause that he, as a champion of global free trade, has long been interested in. He has often thought more strategically than many of us, so I congratulate him on his prescience in pushing forward with the aim of our joining the trans-Pacific partnership.

Now is an extraordinary moment for our country. It is important that we touch on one of the elephants in the room, which my hon. Friend alluded to. The application to accede to the trans-Pacific partnership is absolutely not a substitute for leaving the European Union. It is a way of growing our trade, investment, global relationships and opportunities for constituents in ways that could never have occurred while dealing with the issue of our relationships with the European Union, and is now not just possible but the right thing to do.

Let me be clear for the record that we need our trade to succeed everywhere in the world. We do not want a huge drop in trade with the EU as a result of leaving the European Union; we want to see a significant increase all around the world. This coalition of the willing around the Pacific region, which we aspire to join, gives us a huge opportunity. As several Members mentioned, the trans-Pacific partnership is not above all about tariff benefits. In fact, we have free trade agreements with seven of the 11 members, and no doubt we will shortly have them with at least two others.

The real benefits are around that most obscure of trading details: the rules of origin. The easiest way for me to try to bring that alive, particularly for my constituents, is to highlight the challenges for a bicycle manufacturer on the edge of Gloucester, in Hardwicke, which currently imports the frames from Taiwan and adds various things from their own factory and distributes and exports the bicycles around the world. That has become very hard indeed in the European Union as a result of the new rules of origin, but should we, and Taiwan, accede to the trans-Pacific partnership, the company’s global exporting prospects will be much better. Therefore, we should welcome both the opportunities from the origin and the new rules that will come from investment, intellectual property and digital trade.

As others have alluded to, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), the opportunities that come out of the Japan free trade agreement in terms of digitalisation and liberalisation set a good precedent for what can be achieved by the CPTPP, which I prefer to refer to as the trans- Pacific partnership. The advanced provisions—there may be further opportunities on services from our negotiations with Australia and New Zealand—offer greater opportunities for a nation for whom 45% of exports are services.

There is another elephant in the room: China. Let me be clear that we can and should increase our trade with China, as the integrated review spells out; given that I am a former British trade commissioner to China, no one would expect me to say anything else. I believe in increasing trade everywhere—legally, and while supporting the values we believe in and champion.

That leads me to another element of our Indo-Pacific tilt. We should not expect that it will all be plain sailing, and nor would becoming a member of the TPP in itself prevent some of the many challenges that come about in countries where the systems, levels of corruption in some cases, amount of violence in others, will constantly challenge our own commitment to human rights. We have to find a framework for standing up for our values while making sure that our businesses have the confidence to know that they can trade in the long term.

Forty years ago, I made a decision, based on an instinct, to have the adventure of going to work for a British company in the far east. It turned out to be the best strategic thing that I have ever done, as it was for other businesses that did the same thing at that time. I am quite convinced that the decision our country is making today, on a much more rational basis, will be the right strategic move for us.

I am not sure that the description of the TPP by Stephen Harper, the former Canadian Prime Minister, as creating an “alternative global order” is necessarily where we are today. However, it is true that if the US gives the support to the TPP that was given it by the Obama Administration, that would be a significant game-changer, and our joining the TPP would turn it from a regional organisation into one with a wider global reach.

For all those reasons, I am disappointed that there are not more Opposition Members joining this debate today. This move will have benefits for our constituents across the country, and it is therefore in our interests to support the Government in acceding to the TPP.

--- Later in debate ---

[Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. This has been one of the finest Westminster Hall debates that I have attended in 16 years as a Member of Parliament. It is a genuine pleasure to be able to respond to it.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) for securing the debate. He made an excellent speech that made my case for CPTPP as well as I could. He gave a brilliant exposition of the benefits. He rightly points out that he was an early enthusiast for joining the CPTPP. Over the years, he has been a forceful advocate for a sovereign, independent trade policy. I know he has welcomed the FTAs that we have already agreed with 67 countries, with Serbia added to the list this week, and with the EU itself, as he pointed out.

I hope to cheer him further by outlining our plans to unleash even more of Britain’s trading potential through accession to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership. That is quite a mouthful and comes with the world’s hardest-to-pronounce acronym, the CPTPP—in trade, the longer the term, often the more important the content, and that is true of this agreement.

We know that 2020 was a time of unprecedented challenge on every level, but CPTPP is going to be part of the future of this country. Our accession to CPTPP will be central to our endeavour to build back better and to assist our economic recovery, and our preparations are advancing at pace. As colleagues know, on 1 February we submitted our notification of intent to begin the accession process. That was the first formal step before formal negotiations start later in the year. Joining CPTPP would give British firms access to a free trade area worth £9 trillion, made up of 11 like-minded nations that share our commitment to free trade, international co-operation and the rules-based system.

Britain is the first new country to apply to join this trade partnership since it was established in 2018, with big economies such as South Korea, Thailand and Taiwan. A good point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who knows the region incredibly well, as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Malaysia and the Association of Southeast Nations region. All of those also show interest in membership.

It is a high-standards agreement between sovereign nations, which together account for 13% of global GDP. UK membership would increase that share by nearly 20%, to 16% overall. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe pointed out, we are not a small nation. Equally, nothing in CPTPP will impinge on our domestic right to regulate, which was one of his key questions.

This is very much a business-focused agreement, removing tariffs on 95% of goods traded between members and reducing other barriers to trade. The UK already does more than £110 billion-worth of trade with individual CPTPP members, and the average growth rate is 8% per annum. Some of our closest trade allies—Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore—are there, as are big actual or potential markets, such as Mexico, Vietnam and Malaysia, but our membership would take those trade ties to another level, opening up even more opportunities for businesses of all kinds and all sizes across the United Kingdom, spurring growth, generating jobs, delivering prosperity the length and breadth of our country and helping us to level up opportunity nationwide.

This is good news for all regions and nations of the UK, which can strengthen their already lucrative trade ties with these markets. In 2019, for example, more than £3 billion-worth of goods were exported to CPTPP nations from the east midlands alone, together with £2 billion-worth from the north-west of England and £2.4 billion-worth from Scotland. With accession, those bonds of prosperity are set to strengthen and deepen in the years ahead.

To look at specific benefits for Britain in cutting-edge sectors that are shaping the world of tomorrow, from digital trade to tech and automation—these points were made by my hon. Friends the Members for Wycombe and for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt)—accession would allow us to work even more closely together with other members on the development of modern digital trade rules that facilitate free and trusted cross-border trade flows and remove unnecessary barriers to business. That point was also made extremely well by my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), who spoke first in the Back-Bench contributions.

The depth and breadth of the CPTPP’s e-commerce chapter provide a platform for the UK to help to shape, together with big global players in the sector, the emerging digital trading rulebook. These markets offer exciting new opportunities for British tech innovators as we seek to bind the UK, which is after all Europe’s tech capital, ever more closely with the dynamism of the Asia-Pacific region, unlocking ever greater digital trade potential between us as we build on the nearly £19 billion-worth of digitally delivered services that the UK exported to CPTPP countries in 2019. Those points were localised really well by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North in his “Global MK” speech, which I think will have gone down very well in his local area.

Accession would also make it easier for British business people to travel between member countries via the potential for faster and cheaper business visas—a point made very well by my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher). To return to a key question from my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe, access to the agreement’s dedicated chapter on small and medium-sized enterprises will ease barriers to trade for small firms by cutting tariffs and reducing red tape, giving thousands of British SMEs greater access to these vibrant markets. A really important feature of modern free trade deals is the SME chapter. A free trade agreement can seem incredibly forbidding—a typical free trade agreement has 700 or 800 pages. Someone running an SME will not have the time, let alone perhaps the inclination, to read a 700 or 800-page agreement. The idea of the SME chapter is that it allows a company to navigate the free trade agreement and take advantage of things such as Government publicity about what is available there; it eases the passage for an SME and particularly a first-time exporter.

In addition, there is the potential for swifter elimination of tariffs on key British exports, including whisky. I look over to my friend from the Democratic Unionist party, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). There is that potential on whisky tariffs. Of course, everybody likes to think about Scotch, but what about Irish whiskey? I have a very good relationship with the Irish Whiskey Association, and we also always promote Irish whiskey—as well as cars, a point of particular relevance to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi), and the automotive industry.

We could also benefit from the rules-of-origin provisions, which mean that goods produced in any country within the CPTPP will be classed as originating in the free trade area. To give just one example, cars made in the UK could use more Japanese-made parts, such as batteries, and still qualify for tariff reductions when the completed cars are exported to other CPTPP members—for example, Canada. They would count as being of qualifying CPTPP origin. That is a win-win scenario for the British economy.

On parliamentary scrutiny, which has been raised a couple of times, this Government are committed to transparency and we will ensure that parliamentarians, UK citizens and businesses have access to information on our trade negotiations. On 7 December last year, the Secretary of State for International Trade made a written statement outlining the transparency and scrutiny arrangements that will apply to our new FTAs. I am pleased to confirm that those will also apply to the CPTPP negotiations. Before the launch of formal negotiations, we will publish our objectives, alongside a response to the public consultation that has already been held, which the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) referred to, and an initial economic scoping assessment, which the Chair of the International Trade Committee, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), referred to. He seems, however, already to have made up his mind about what will be in the economic assessment, but I shall see him later, when I appear before his Committee, and perhaps we will continue the discussion at that point.

We will continue to keep Parliament and the public informed of the progress of negotiations via regular updates, working closely with the relevant Committees in both Houses. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe sought an explainer. That is exactly what a lot of the documentation is intended to do—to explain the potential and actual benefits from the free trade agreement. As to the point that the hon. Member for Strangford made about a full debate, I would welcome one. I welcome this morning’s debate, and in the Department for International Trade we welcome the opportunity to explain and expand on Britain’s free trading future.

Most of the questions raised by the hon. Member for Sefton Central will, I think, be answered when we publish the negotiation objectives shortly, but to deal with one of his points—the idea that CPTPP will be a back door for a trade deal with China—I cannot make it clearer that there are no plans or intentions for a UK trade deal with China. It is very unlikely that China would meet the requirements for the CPTPP at the moment, and it is worth not forgetting that it is subject to the veto of existing CPTPP members, which, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, do not yet include the UK. However, we might ask whether China would be welcomed by the existing members of the organisation.

We heard some rather tired, familiar arguments from the SNP Front Bench. I think that the party is always much more interested in debating Brexit than the UK’s trading future. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) did not like CPTPP, and I was not the least bit surprised, because the SNP has never supported any trade agreement negotiated by either the European Union or the United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman may have a nice backdrop, but as to the content of his speech, it expounded the virtues of EU trade agreements, not a single one of which the SNP ever supported. The SNP voted against the Canada deal and it failed to support the Japan deal and the Singapore deal. Those deals were negotiated by the EU, which the hon. Gentleman now praises; so I do not think we will take any words from him. I did not for a moment expect him to support the CPTPP trade deal. The SNP is anti-trade, anti-Scotland and anti-Scotland’s best economic interests.

The hon. Member for Strangford raised an important point about ISDS. I should point out that ISDS procedures are already in place in 90 bilateral UK trade deals. We have never lost a case. We strongly believe that we have nothing to fear from ISDS, but we will shortly publish our negotiation objectives, which will include that important question.

[Richard Graham]

On the point from the SNP about what is really in Scotland’s best interests, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is curious that at this time, when those of us who are trade envoys to the south-east Asian region are doing so much to push for greater access for some of our great drink and food products, including Scotch whisky, the hon. Gentleman cannot see the advantages of the dialogue partner status with ASEAN and the TPP arrangements that the Minister is pursuing?

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Minister, you have three minutes.

Trade Bill

Richard Graham Excerpts

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

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind) [V]]

It is a pleasure to speak briefly in this debate in support of the amendments made in the other place. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) who made a very passionate and convincing case for supporting Lords amendment 3, to which I will refer later.

Lords amendment 1 would introduce vital democratic safeguards into international trade policy by ensuring that the Executive cannot operate unilaterally. It would strengthen the hand of Parliament without undermining the ability of the UK Government to conduct negotiations as they see fit. In reality, the negotiations with the European Union have clearly shown that trade agreements can have far-reaching consequences for people’s everyday lives, from food standards to workers’ rights, from environmental legislation to the impact on our public services. It is to be welcomed then that Lords amendment 1 would require the UK Government to outline their negotiating objectives to Parliament prior to the commencement of any trade negotiations and to secure the agreement of both Houses before a deal is ratified, giving Members of Parliament a meaningful role in setting trade policy.

There was much debate during earlier proceedings of the Bill about how domestic democratic empowerment would strengthen the hand of the UK Government when it comes to trade negotiations. That was certainly my experience during a brief visit to the United States many years ago to scrutinise the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the EU and the US, where we were reminded that there were certain matters, such as access to food markets, which were non-negotiable for Congress.

Although I support Lords amendment 1, I would have liked to see it go even further in respect of strengthening the role of the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish Governments and respective Parliaments. That would not be without precedence. In the EU, every single member state has a veto over its international trade deals as well as sub-national Governments such as Wallonia in Belgium. Although I accept that the UK Government have a direct responsibility for trade policy, I believe that a world of constitutional trouble awaits us unless there are statutory safeguards for the respective countries of the British state. I therefore urge the British Government not only to retain Lords amendment 1, but to go a step further by giving the devolved Parliaments a veto on trade agreements.

I wish briefly to pledge my support for Lords amendment 3—the so-called genocide amendment—which several right hon. and hon. Members have supported this afternoon. Effectively, it couples international trade policy with the promotion of human rights.

Lords amendment 4 would place protections for the NHS on a legislative basis. I also support Lords amendment 6, which sets out to protect a range of regulatory standards such as for food, animal welfare and workers’ rights. Given the increasing noises coming from the Government Benches about a bonfire of standards, acceptance of this amendment would go a long way to allaying fears that our trade policy would be used as a regressive Trojan horse.

I am disappointed to see that the Government are seeking to remove provisions from Lords amendment 9 that strengthen the Trade and Agriculture Commission. Again, I ask Ministers to include representatives from the devolved Governments on the commission and introduce scrutiny protocols for the commission with the Welsh Senedd, the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con) [V]]

A lot in this Trade Bill is to be welcomed, including its reinforced commitments to an agricultural commission, which has been welcomed by the farming sector and the NFU, as well as more scrutiny by the International Trade Committee. In my 10th year as trade envoy for three Prime Ministers, I believe that the Bill is further evidence of our commitment to take forward UK trade and investment across the world as a key part of global Britain, and that is not just an idle slogan, for international trade and investment secures jobs across our country, funds our welfare and social justice, and requires engagement globally.

Today we face the so-called genocide amendment, which would propose to replicate the role of the UN and the International Criminal Court because of issues with how that process is currently functioning. The amendment would—as the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) clearly illustrated when she spoke about both Cameroon and Egypt—be used by many Members who wish to expand the creation of such a court to have a much wider role on human rights issues and their implications for our trade arrangements, including those already signed, as well as those proposed.

Earlier we heard another Opposition Member, the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), refer to human rights abuses in Indonesia—a country that has moved further and faster in the development of an open democratic society over the last decade than almost anywhere else I can think of—so let us be in no doubt as to where some would take this amendment. We would find, in an imperfect world, that such a court would be used to limit and constrain our free trade severely, which neither the Labour party nor the SNP was ever in favour of anyway. These are issues that should be decided by our Government and, above all, this Parliament.

Let me briefly address the Uyghur question, for Lords amendment 3 in the first place is aimed squarely at the People’s Republic of China. Many years ago, I almost died in Xinjiang, crossing its great Taklamakan desert. What has happened there for many decades, but with greatly increased severity since 2009, cannot conceivably be supported by anyone in the United Kingdom, but I do not believe that this amendment, if implemented, would achieve anything at all for the Uyghurs or Xinjiang. We should not be asking judges to make political judgments. It is for this place to decide what our relationship with China should be. Over the last decade, we have veered from golden era to worst era in a short period of time. We have to find that balance, and the Trade Bill is not the place for it. It should be part of the integrated review on foreign policy and defence that we await shortly. Meanwhile, I support the Government strongly in opposing an amendment that would subcontract our scrutiny of human rights and of our trade relationships to a new court.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

I am pleased to see this Bill return to the House in a much better state than when it left. Taken together, the Lords amendments will ensure that our trade deal lives up to the standards that the public rightly expect, both at home and in regard to our international obligations. I will focus my comments on Lords amendment 3 to 5, because they address issues that Vauxhall residents are concerned about.

I heard the Minister’s opening statement, seeking to reassure us that the NHS is safe, but I am not reassured. My late mother, as a sufferer of sickle cell disease, received excellent care from King’s College Hospital, and in later life as a renal dialysis patient. My two children were born locally, in St Thomas’ Hospital—the same hospital that treated our Prime Minister during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. My constituents do not support the creeping marketisation of the NHS and neither do I, so I urge Members to vote to ensure the amendment is protected on our statute book.

Lords amendment 3 focuses on the extreme crime of genocide and obliges the Government to revoke any future trade agreement with countries found responsible for it by the UK High Court. Our trade policy sends a message to the rest of the world about who we are and what we stand for. Surely no one in this House wants us to continue to trade with countries where genocide occurs, so will the Government reconsider their opposition to Lords amendment 3 and support it today?

Global Britain

Richard Graham Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con) [V]]

This debate is led by the Department for International Trade, but in truth, if global Britain is to move from good intentions to successful strategy, it will need to involve all of Government, every constituency and many people—every immigrant nurse, every exporter, every person in our diverse communities who may have come from anywhere in the world but is contributing to our cities and our nation. In many ways, the pandemic is a metaphor for what can be achieved, for the key ingredients of our huge progress on vaccination have come from academics, scientists, the Government-created vaccine taskforce, taxpayer and corporate investment, pharmaceutical and regulatory leadership, and now primary care networks working closely with the NHS and the Army. That combination, involving so many skills, translates into a huge international commitment through GAVI, which was led at its recent summit by the UK. This involved a huge commitment of £330 million for each of the next five years by our own nation, as well as a huge number of other countries, with Oxford-AstraZeneca becoming the first manufacturer to guarantee huge numbers of doses of vaccine for global distribution.

So the idea that the UK has become little England, cut off from the world, does not match the reality of global Britain and the way in which we are facing the greatest global challenge of 2020-21. In our chairmanship of the G7 and the climate change summit COP26 this year, we have other opportunities to try to help the world resolve some of our greatest challenges. This means not only leading by example, which the Prime Minister’s 10-point green plan and his financial commitments bring alive, but working with the crucial partners to achieve common goals, and that includes both the United States of America and China. Global Britain therefore needs calm diplomacy focused on delivery; strong values; and a pragmatic recognition that this House accepts that there is little social justice without a strong economy and that exports bring huge mutual benefits to both our partners abroad and here.

There is so much I would like to say, including about the valiant work of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, supporting open societies, recognising the great efforts we are making for the trans-Pacific partnership in Asia and, above all, the opportunity to show that we can, as President Reagan put it, achieve anything we want to so long as we do not mind who takes the credit.

UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

This has been an excellent debate, with speeches from 13 Government Back Benchers and six Opposition Members. It is an historic moment, as the Secretary of State outlined. The UK-Japan comprehensive economic partnership agreement is an historic milestone in embracing the opportunities of the UK’s future as an independent trading nation. It shows that economic powerhouses such as Japan—the world’s third largest economy—want ambitious deals with the UK and that it is possible to strike deals that go further and faster than the EU. It not only secures the benefits of the existing EU agreements, which many—and particularly the Opposition—said was impossible, but goes further in a number of key areas such as digital and data, financial services, the protection of geographical indicators and rules of origin. It was negotiated in record time, almost entirely virtually.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Greg Hands]

I give way to hon. Friend, who was not able to get into the debate.

[Richard Graham]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. Does he agree that this important free trade agreement is the first of several key UK-Asia goals over the next year, including accession to the trans-Pacific partnership, dialogue partner status with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, several bilateral market access initiatives and partnership of the climate change summit in Glasgow? Altogether, this will bring alive the determined strategy of global Britain.

[Greg Hands]

My hon. Friend is quite right. He is our trade envoy to the ASEAN region and to a couple of countries there. I was addressing our DIT internal teams in the Asia-Pacific region just this week on the incredible opportunities that this country has there.

The deal was negotiated almost entirely virtually. It deepens the economic partnership between two like-minded island democracies. It reflects our shared values and our shared belief in the fundamental principles of free and fair trade and the importance of playing by the rules. That point was made on both sides of the House, including by the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) and my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt). This British-shaped deal strengthens ties between the world’s third largest and fifth largest economies and will help to drive economic growth in the long run. The Government are committed to levelling up the UK, delivering opportunity and unleashing the potential of every part of our United Kingdom.

We heard in this debate from two former Trade Ministers: my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), with his excellent and deep understanding of world trade, and my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) on the importance of the International Trade Committee in scrutinising this agreement. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), who again showed that we have proved the naysayers wrong, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams) about thriving Wales-Japan trade, particularly in the area of lamb.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey, a former Foreign Secretary, described this as a personal triumph for the Trade Secretary; I entirely agree. I can attest at first hand to how much personal effort she has put into getting the team to move forward, including in the early hours of the day. That has been incredibly helpful. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), who chairs the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, welcomed the fact that the Trade and Agriculture Commission was to be put on a statutory basis. He also pointed out that Japan is the world’s largest importer of agrifood.

Trade Deals and the NHS

Richard Graham Excerpts

Monday 16th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) on introducing the petition to us. I also thank my hon. Friends for their excellent speeches. We heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley), for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) and for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins).

The petition is about omitting the NHS from future trade deals with the US. The concerns raised by the petitioners would be relatively easily dealt with were the Minister, in a few minutes’ time, to commit not just to what he has said before about the NHS being off the table, but to putting protections in the Trade Bill—to passing in the House of Lords the amendments that were turned down in this place and retaining them when the Bill comes back here in the next few days or weeks. That would be the simplest way of dealing with what the petitioners are asking for.

The petitioners are concerned about the American healthcare system, the size and scale of the industry in America, the fact that it accounts for one in eight jobs in the United States, its importance to the US economy and its importance to shareholders. Those US healthcare companies have a responsibility to maximise shareholder wealth—as do all companies, of course—so they are only doing what they must do, and that means looking further afield. It means looking with great interest at the national health service. We know that they do that, did it and will continue to do it—for the next few days anyway, with the support of the Trump Administration. Yes, it is welcome news that we have President-elect Biden, hopefully, to take over—court cases notwithstanding —on 20 January, but this petition was signed when President Trump was in office and the petitioners had no way of knowing whether that would change.

The petitioners are concerned about the US objectives published in March. They are concerned about the market access being requested by US negotiators for pharmaceuticals. They are concerned about what that market access means in practice.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Bill Esterson]

I will not give way to somebody who has not been here for the whole debate.

Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (Accession)

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I point out to the hon. Gentleman that New Zealand is not actually using all its current quota of lamb, because there is massive demand for New Zealand lamb around the world, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, which is closer to production. I can assure him that, when we are negotiating these deals, we will make absolutely sure that British farmers do not have their standards undermined.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Our application to accede to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, alongside our application this week to become a dialogue partner in our own right to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, highlights our commitment to Asia, as the Secretary of State has said. It is worth noting that the Kingdom of Brunei Darussalam is both party to the TPP and in the chair of ASEAN next year. Does she agree that it would also be a huge game changer if the United States of America decided to become part of the Trans-Pacific partnership, as it has already mooted?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on all his excellent work as trade envoy to countries such as Malaysia. I know that he is a big fan of Brunei and visiting it and working with it. In terms of the Americans’ trade strategy, I would not presume to advise them on which networks they should seek to be part of. It is certainly the case that the TPP is a very high-quality agreement, and we want to make it one that more members who believe in free trade and the rules-based global system want to join.