Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

The hon. Gentleman follows these matters closely, and he knows that, on both sides of the Atlantic, we broadly agree that we need to keep up the momentum and make progress. If we do not achieve this deal by the end of 2015 or early 2016, we will not get there at all because the politics will take over. That is the history of trade deals. We would all have preferred an arrangement like the Doha round, under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation, but since that has gone we have tried to move towards this kind of agreement. The pace will vary. We have made remarkable progress so far, and we are about to go into our fourth round. Some of the first offers have already been exchanged.

How quickly this goes will depend on events. The half-term elections in the United States might slow things down, for example. Also, the US is engaged in negotiations on the Pacific partnership, which is associated with our agreement and slightly ahead of it. In any event, we have to secure agreement within the present administrative term in the United States, and before the politics in any part of Europe start to go sour because a lobby group suddenly decides that vested interests can be protected by opposing the deal. We have every intention of pressing on and making progress as rapidly as possible.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

In our negotiations with the US Government, is it not important that we should emphasise the distinction between the TTIP and deals such as the trans-Pacific partnership, on the basis that the risk of a sophisticated, regulated market such as the EU dumping inferior goods on the US is minimal, and that the fears that have accompanied other free trade deals need not exist in the TTIP?

[Mr Clarke]

I can assure my hon. Friend that I make that point, although we are not hostile to the Pacific partnership. It is perfectly reasonable for the American Administration to wish to conclude such an ambitious deal. However, people appreciate that the issues being discussed in Congress and among the American public are quite different from ours, and I think that that makes it easier for us to make progress. On the question of fast-track authority, which would determine when we eventually conclude, my hon. Friend has mentioned worries about the trans-Pacific partnership that are causing doubts in the United States. I think that we are waiting in the queue behind that agreement in that regard.

[Mr Buckland]

Is there not a danger that members of Congress who are hostile to the fast-track authority proposals could somehow bring the TTIP into the mix and withhold FTA for our deal, as opposed to the trans-Pacific partnership?

[Mr Clarke]

The answer to that is yes, there is a danger. I can assure my hon. Friend that we will do our best to minimise it, as will the commission in Washington. It would be most unfortunate if that were to happen.

That brings me to the question of transparency. No one is hostile to the idea of being transparent. The EU is a union of 28 nation states and Governments, all of whom have their own Parliament, and the desire to share information among Parliaments and the public is considerable. There is a dilemma, however, in that there is a conflict between that arrangement and the negotiating positions. There is no doubt that our American friends negotiate very hard indeed. They are pretty hard-nosed people when it comes to negotiating the detail, and we cannot send our negotiators into the chamber with all their bottom lines, their ambitions and the mandates they have received from their member states revealed. We need to get that balance right, but the instinct of Commissioner de Gucht and Commissioner Barnier—and certainly of the British Government—is to be as forthcoming as possible, so long as we are not simply feeding information to lobbies that want to try to put a spoke in the wheels. I entirely understand that getting public support—and, eventually, the smooth ratification of this deal—will depend on whether we have been sufficiently transparent with all the lobbies.