Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

8. What steps she plans to take to help increase trade with the EU.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Andrew Griffith)]

This Government continue to seek an excellent trading relationship with our former EU partners, just as we do with other international markets. Hon. Members will be pleased to note that goods exported to the EU for May 2022 were over 17% higher than the 2018 monthly average, so trade here is already increasing. To increase exports, we need to get more British businesses exporting, and to do that the Department has initiatives such as the Export Academy and the export champions scheme that help to give them the knowledge and practical help that they need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Griffith]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your welcome. I also thank the hon. Member for her question. Of course, she did not support the EU trade agreement that this Government put in place, so it is quite rich for her now to turn around and say that we are not increasing exports. In my previous answer, I talked about the many interventions that this Government are making, including internationalisation and the Brexit support fund of £38 million that is going to small and medium-sized enterprises to help them overcome the barriers that the protectionist EU puts in place.

[Dr Huq]

I, too, welcome the Minister to what I hope is a long and fruitful career. My question is about services, not goods. Our biggest export is the English language—it is the lingua franca of the world, isn’t it?—but the language schools that teach teenagers over the summer months are collapsing at quite a scary rate. Only seven out of 20 remain in Hastings, and there are three in Ealing, but before 2019 there were five. Will the Minister—whoever it is at any particular time—and their officials sit down with me and the trade bodies? They say that there has been an 80% drop in business, which is now going to Malta and Ireland. We can do better than this in global Britain. Can we sit down to talk about removing those things for this once lucrative—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Come on—you have to get to the question eventually.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

12. What steps she is taking to ensure that protections for exports to third countries negotiated while the UK was a member of the EU are maintained following the UK’s departure from the EU.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mr Ranil Jayawardena)]

Since leaving the EU, the United Kingdom has secured trade agreements with 70 non-EU countries, in addition to the deal with the EU. Many of those deals were negotiated to secure continuity of trade, and they cover 99% of the trade under trade agreements we were subject to when we were also subject to the diktats of the EU, which I am sure is not what the Labour party is advocating today.

[Dr Huq]

I listened to what Mr Speaker said—I mean the Minister—[Interruption.] Of course we always listen to everything Mr Speaker says. The Minister’s description does not tally with the experience of my constituent, Danny Hodgson, whose clothes retail business Rivet & Hide made the Financial Times exactly a year ago because of the crippling new additional duties he faces in importing from the EU. This time it is even worse, because he is finding that all the goods coming in from Japan are attracting a 12% levy. That is slapped on erroneously and routinely seven out of 10 times, I think, and it is a bureaucratic, red tape, bookkeeping nightmare for him. Will the Government look into the case? They are meant to be the party of small and medium-sized enterprises and low tax, and they have trashed their reputation for all that. Can the Government urgently help my constituent please?

[Mr Jayawardena]

I am delighted that the hon. Lady recognises that this party is the party of business. That is great news and I welcome her remarks. She references a business that trades with Japan, but I note that she did not vote for the deal with Japan nor the deals with Canada, Singapore or even the EU. Of course we will happily look at any business that she wishes to raise with me in writing, but I point out that this party is the party of business. We are the party that is securing the trade deals that will benefit businesses across our country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

I must congratulate the hon. Lady on the speed of her uptake, because yes indeed, as I have said in my previous answers, this is for a different Department of Government. I think she suggested that the EU was a growing share of the global market, but it is not. Twenty years ago it was the majority of our exports; now it is a minority. Its share of global GDP has been falling. We are, at the direction of the Secretary of State, pitching our business to the fastest-growing parts of the world, not the more sclerotic.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab) [V]]

Mounting costs are killing one of our biggest exports—culture—with additional duties on physical product and performers. My constituent Andy Smart has regularly performed at two comedy/ski festivals, but now one of them no longer accepts Brits, preferring the Irish, and the other has been cancelled as unviable because of Brexit obstacles. Can we work cross-departmentally to abolish these levies, because, as one of those festivals is called, it is literally taking the piste?

[Graham Stuart]

There is no one better in this House than the hon. Lady at marrying sociological insight with popular culture, and of course as an experienced DJ she knows more about music than most of the rest of us. I entirely agree with her, though, that we have to work flat out, in a cross-governmental way, to ensure that we minimise any frictions at the border for those vital and important cultural exports of which music is an important part.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Accession to the CPTPP is a priority for this Government and a key part of our trade negotiation programme. We aim to make our formal notification of our intent to accede soon. This agreement will give huge opportunities for British business to export more goods. We already export more goods to the CPTPP countries than to China. For example, 95% of goods are tariff-free under the agreement, and the strong data and digital provisions will really help British tech firms.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab) [V]]

The Prime Minister promised barrier-free trade with the EU post Brexit, but local firms that now find costly obstacles in VAT issues are finding the opposite, so could the Government please rectify the situation for firms that import from outside the EU to export to within it, because small British businesses have become less attractive than our EU competitors? Returns mean ruinous, cash flow-killing charges for a reverse transaction. Some of these firms have had to diversify after lockdown shut their shops, and many are on the brink of bankruptcy.

[Elizabeth Truss]

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), is running the Brexit business taskforce to ensure that the additional processes required of businesses are clear and to give businesses the support they need to be able to trade in the new environment.

Global Britain

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Global Britain—a lofty ideal, but with recent months witnessing a dramatic reduction of the UK’s international aid and a hard Brexit, I want to strike a note of realism into the Government’s one-way triumphalism.

Less than two weeks ago, we saw our relationship with our biggest and closest trading partner, five decades after a Tory Government took us into the European Economic Community in a 12-year process, fizzle out in another of these constrained debates—so much for the sovereignty of Parliament. The Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union then began examining the detail of the 1,256 pages of trade and co-operation reduction downgrades. That Committee, too, is now having the plug pulled, when there is so much to scrutinise.

Erasmus—gone, with its replacement set to foster British uniglotism. Touring musicians, facing ruinously costly obstacles for themselves and gear to get in the van and go—gone. Eighty per cent. of our economy is services, the biggest chunk being financial services. It got 90 mentions while fishing, 1% of the economy, featured 368 times. Too much of this is left “TBC”, and other horrors are only now coming to light. There is no end to red tape, as previously promised, for export/import firms that are reporting untold VAT complications and costs.

The access to criminal databases enjoyed the week before last through the EU arrest warrant—gone. There is no more EU co-operation on defence, the environment, international aid—it is the opposite of global Britain as we shrink on the world stage socially, culturally, and in security and prosperity terms. It is better than no deal, yes, but it is a downgrade none the less, and with no guarantee of keeping up on employment protections and the environment. That is the opposite of levelling up.

On international aid, Cameron, Brown, Blair, Major and even the last Prime Minister—every living Prime Minister —have condemned the cutting of the 0.7% contribution to the world’s poorest as morally unjustifiable and practically short-sighted, particularly at a time when the world faces the common enemy of coronavirus. It seems that we are going it alone when collective action would be wise. On having the courage to condemn old friends and allies when necessary, the past PM was the first to hold Trump’s hand, but now it is time to hold him to account.

This Government have made a habit of U-turns—they occur daily nowadays. The next one must be to start off with reinstating the International Development and Brexit Committees and then go further, because otherwise, global Britain just becomes a mere Bozza buzzword.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

My hon. Friend will know that the Food Standards Agency is extremely well placed on this issue. He will know that the chair, Heather Hancock, sent a letter to all parliamentarians, which I recommend all parliamentarians read and digest. There was also a letter from the Secretaries of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and for International Trade about the important work of this non-ministerial Government department. To be clear, decisions on standards will be made separately from trade negotiations.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The use of bullets, tear gas and batons on innocent protesters has, as the Secretary of State acknowledged, shocked the world in the aftermath of the brutal killing of George Floyd, so can she tell us whether her Department has authorised the export of any of the above in the past 12 months?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I have already answered a letter from the shadow Secretary of State on precisely this issue. Quarterly, we publish exactly which export licences we issue as a Department. We are completely transparent, and we operate in line with the consolidated criteria.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

I join the Secretary of the State in welcoming the right hon. Lady to her position. After four years of the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), we always look forward to seeing somebody new at the Dispatch Box.

Again, we are active in all available forums to ensure that the UK’s supply of prescription and non-prescription medicines continues. For example, following the restrictions that India put in place on 3 March, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been very active with the Indian Trade Minister to get almost all those restrictions removed. We will continue to be active with all our trade partners to ensure that products continue to flow to our NHS at this time.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

15. What recent discussions she has had with UK trade partners on including clauses on human rights in future trade deals.

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

The UK has a strong history of safeguarding human rights and promoting our values globally. Our strong economic relationships with trading partners allow the Government to have open discussions on a range of important issues, including human rights. We continue to encourage all states to uphold international human rights obligations.

[Dr Huq [V]]

Twenty-one countries have been listed where negotiations are ongoing with regard to rolling over existing trade agreements beyond 31 December. A number of those countries have shockingly poor human rights records, including Cameroon, Egypt, Singapore, Uganda and South Sudan. Will the Minister tell us whether human rights are part of those discussions? Also, in order to ensure that there is no saying one thing and doing another while everyone is diverted by coronavirus, will he guarantee the inclusion of human rights clauses in any eventual deals?

[Greg Hands]

I think the hon. Lady is referring to the various EU agreements. She was a passionate campaigner —and, I think, still is—to remain in the EU. Of course, if we had remained we would still be in those trade agreements with the self-same countries that she mentioned, but we are clear that the UK will remain a strong voice for human rights and that more trade does not have to come at the expense of human rights, and we will continue to encourage all states to uphold international human rights obligations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I disagree with the premise of the hon. Lady’s question. Now that we have left the EU, we have the opportunity to set our own rules and regulations in tech, and really lead the world in areas like artificial intelligence and blockchain. That is exactly what we are seeking to do with these new free trade agreements. We are also seeking, at the World Trade Organisation, to lead in areas like the joint statement on e-commerce, and looking for new SME-friendly chapters in our trade deals to help exactly these types of tech start-ups to sell their goods around the world.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

14. What recent progress she has made with her non-EU counterparts on negotiations for future trade agreements with those countries.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Trade (Conor Burns)]

As we said earlier, only this week we have launched our negotiating platform for a free trade agreement with the United States. Those for Australia, New Zealand and Japan will follow in due course, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will set those out. My role within the Department is to support her in scoping out and assessing the potential for future free trade agreements around the rest of the world.

[Dr Huq]

In reality, the roll-over deals struck to date amount to just 8% of our existing total trade, yet we were told that all this would be sorted by one minute past midnight on 31 March last year. Are the US negotiations being conducted in tandem with the EU ones, with fully trained teams aware of what each other is doing so that that can be factored into any future relationship? I am sure that other countries will be thinking the same, particularly as our objectives seem to be so divergent from the US’s “America first” aims?

[Conor Burns]

I understand that the hon. Lady attended a briefing yesterday on the negotiations, led by our brilliant chief negotiator. She asks whether we are pursuing concurrent trade negotiations with the EU and the United States. The answer is yes we are, in exactly the same way that the EU is currently negotiating with the United States.

Global Britain

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate on the eve of our departure from the EU. I congratulate the many Members who have spoken. I say to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson), who is just leaving, that we share many things. Although we do not share a party, we share a surname; we share the experience of spending time in Bosnia; we share a faith; and we share a commitment to social justice, which was wonderful to hear about. His speech was very brave and very moving, and I thank him for it.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) on his speech and on the birth of his new baby. I congratulate the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey) on a lively, engaging and passionate speech, and I congratulate my near neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), on her speech, which covered so many issues that are important for our constituents and local residents, but also for our place in Britain and the world.

Global Britain is important to the residents of Putney, Southfields and Roehampton. More than one in 10 residents are from other EU countries, and many more are from other countries around the world. As a constituency, we feel global and outward facing, so I am glad to hear many references to Britain being an outward-facing country even though we are leaving the EU.

I would like to distance myself from the scenes of the Brexit party waving their flags in the European Parliament yesterday. I thank the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) for mentioning that this should be a time of kindness, and for the acknowledgement that some Members and residents feel sorrow at this time. I welcome his comments about healing our divisions, and I hope that we will share more such sentiments across the House. Many Members and residents in Putney feel that what is going to happen tomorrow is an act of self-harm. We hope that we will see better times, but we are feeling sad at the moment. I associate myself with the comments of the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, who said:

“We will always love you”.

We will always love the EU, working closely together but in a different way, from tomorrow onwards.

Global Britain should not just be about enhancing the UK’s international prestige and influence on the world stage. A global Britain in 2020 needs to defend multilateralism and the rules-based international order from the threats posed by those who seek to refine them. We need to promote our core values and not use the act of distancing ourselves from protectionism as an excuse to move away from our values of human rights, democracy and environmental sustainability. We must not detach our discussions about global Britain from trade, trade democracy, trade justice and our leading role in international development and the achievement of the sustainable development goals. I want to focus on those areas.

On current evidence, the Government’s approach to trade does not take seriously our global responsibility to tackle the imminent threat of climate change, to defend human rights and to ensure trade democracy and transparency. Removing child refugee rights from the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill was not a good start, and I think doing so sent the wrong signals to the world. We have yet to see what will come up in the immigration Bill. I know that the Government say that that subject will be dealt with in the Bill, and I want to be optimistic. It is in that vein, and following that thread, that I will make my following comments.

I am concerned about our post-Brexit trade objectives. We still have next to no information on the Government’s trade objectives after Brexit. Despite repeated calls from organisations such as the CBI, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Trade Justice Movement, there has yet to be a sustainability impact assessment of post-Brexit trade deals, or any indication of how the Government see trade policy tying in to the broader industrial strategy and to environmental and social objectives. We have been given no clear indication of what the process will be for parliamentary scrutiny of post-Brexit trade deals.

There is already a huge democratic deficit in what is one of the most important processes in our country’s history. Future trade deals with the US leave us exposed to the risk of products being sold here that have been produced in the US under less environmentally friendly practices. We must take this opportunity to level up our game and not give in to a race to the bottom.

In a few weeks’ time the Government will attempt to roll the EU-Morocco association agreement over into UK legislation, despite widespread concerns about the ongoing Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara and the human rights of the Sahrawi people. Again, the Government are seeking to roll it over with as little scrutiny as possible. This is another example of trade agreements putting economic opportunism above human rights and international law. Is this what we want global Britain to look like? This cannot be the outcome of free trade.

What needs to be done? First, on fair trade, the Government need to work with organisations such as the Fairtrade Foundation and civil society organisations, co-operatives and trade unions to ensure a fair trade Brexit. For instance, future trade policy should ensure that economically vulnerable people do not find themselves paying new import duties on their sales to the UK; assess the impact on poorer countries of trade deals struck with wealthier countries; and make it easier for developing countries to sell their high-value products, not just base products, to the UK. We should also ensure that our trade policies are in line with our commitments to the sustainable development goals.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. She has mentioned co-operatives and linking economic and social justice. On microfinance in Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus’s Grameen bank helps women in particular to get start-up loans for businesses. Does my hon. Friend agree that such initiatives are a way forward and that our Government should engage more positively with them?

[Fleur Anderson]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. I have spoken to women in Bangladesh about ways in which trading policies can be fair. Even those with very small incomes can engage in the global trading system. If we make that our aim and goal, it can be done right from the start.

My second point is that the Department for International Development should be kept as an independent Department. This is a very live issue at the moment. It should not be merged with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Working together, the FCO and DFID give us significant clout globally, which we are in danger of diluting if we merge the two Departments. DFID is considered one of the most effective aid agencies in the world, saving lives through health, immunisation, water, sanitation, education and climate programmes, and by empowering communities to do that. This must be led by a Secretary of State with permanent Cabinet representation and a place on the National Security Council.

We should also increase our environmental commitments to achieve a net zero future. Our now independent membership of the World Trade Organisation and our hosting of COP26 later this year provide a massive opportunity—I want to be as optimistic as I can about leaving the EU—to take global leadership of environmental trade policy and to outdo the EU in the implementation of environmental standards. However, that has to begin with getting our own ship in order. We need to take a more joined-up departmental approach to trade and climate change, and end the culture of siloism. We need to undertake environmental, gender and climate impact assessments before entering trade negotiations, which is why we as a House need to know what is going on in those negotiations. All too often, free trade can have a significant, detrimental impact on women in particular, which is why I mentioned gender impact assessments. We should ensure that all stipulations in future trade agreements are designed to meet our own climate and environmental targets, and we should seek legally binding climate commitments in trade deals, rather than too often ineffective environmental chapters.

Trade deals should also be subject to increased scrutiny, as the shadow Secretary of State for International Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), has said. The Government seem to be making every effort to avoid proper debate on and scrutiny of our trade deals, and they are completely opaque in their objectives. They are hiding. The entire process needs to be reformed and subject to proper oversight, if our trade policy is going to reflect the sort of global Britain that we all want.

Tomorrow we leave the European Union and its regulatory framework. With the Chancellor already having confirmed that there will be no alignment with EU regulations, global Britain is now being defined in our trade and development policies. Are we prepared to enter into trade deals with regimes such as that of President Bolsonaro, who has pursued an aggressive policy on environmental deregulation, for which the Amazon has paid the price? Are we going to continue selling arms to human rights abusers and states violating international humanitarian law? Are we going to continue to let UK-based companies divert rivers and destroy indigenous communities in their own overseas operations? This cannot be the kind of global Britain we want to see.

To conclude, Brexit, tackling global poverty, achieving the sustainable development goals and taking urgent action on the climate crisis all bring huge challenges, but we must meet them with a very British commitment to fairness, by protecting rights and promoting peace, justice, equality, sustainability and prosperity in all that we do on the global stage.

International Trade

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2019 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from questions to the Secretary of State for International Trade on 17 October 2019.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

2. What progress she has made on the rollover of existing EU trade agreements.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Trade (Conor Burns)]

In preparation for our exit from the European Union, the Government have, to date, secured 16 continuity trade agreements with 46 countries. Trade with those countries represents 72% of the UK’s total trade. I am pleased to inform the House that only last week my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State signed another agreement with the Southern African Customs Union and Mozambique to roll over the existing EU trade agreements that we have with them.

[Official Report, 17 October 2019, Vol. 666, c. 431.]

Letter of correction from the Minister of State, Department for International Trade, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns):

An error has been identified in the response I gave to the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq).

The correct response should have been: