Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Courts Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

1. What steps he is taking to promote free trade and WTO reform.

[Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)]

2. What steps he is taking to promote free trade and WTO reform.

[The Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade (Dr Liam Fox)]

This weekend, it will be three years since my Department was formed, and in that time the UK has worked with partners to ensure that the World Trade Organisation is equipped with the tools needed to tackle present challenges and address 21st-century trade issues at a time of significant global headwinds. I emphasised the urgent need for WTO reform in discussions with my counterparts at the G20 trade and digital economy ministerial meeting in Japan a few weeks ago.

[Dr Fox]

Continuity of existing trade terms is in everybody’s interests. I have to say that when the House of Commons gives mixed signals about the possibility of a no-deal exit, quite understandably some of our trading partners wonder whether it is worth investing in getting those continuity agreements. What I would say to those trading partners is that a no-deal exit is not entirely within the control of the United Kingdom; we might end up with a no-deal exit from the European Union. It is in everybody’s interests to have those safety nets in place.

[Robert Courts]

Free trade has the ability to spread the blessings of prosperity and to bring nations closer together. What is my right hon. Friend doing to spread free trade, particularly with our friends in the Commonwealth and the Anglophone countries?