Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I thank my colleague very much for that.

I was reminded of something by what the hon. Member for Mole Valley said about the size of farming in New Zealand and the Scots exiles. I met a man named Andrew Morrison, who is from his part of the world, but originally from mine—his ancestors came from my constituency—and we talked about sheep, because he had sheep. I told him that I had 32 to 33 breeding ewes, depending on the year. He looked at me and said that he had 26, and there was a big pause. My chest was going out during the pause but, unfortunately, he went on to say, “Thousand”. So the hon. Gentleman is indeed right to say that the scale of agricultural production is massively different there.

We are here today to talk about these trade agreements and the legislation that is going forward. Trade agreements, on the whole, are to be welcomed. They are clawing back GDP that was lost by Brexit, although the Government figures do not say that. There are many nuances, and I will come to those by the end of my remarks, but I wish to start with the broad brush by asking why we are doing this. Surely we are doing this for our economic benefit and gain. We have then to set that in the context that the Government are doing it because Brexit is a damaging event to GDP, by up to about 5%.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the reason we are now doing separate trade agreements, especially with the south-east Asian part of the world, a lot of developing countries and countries such as Australia and New Zealand, is that they are the parts of the world that are growing and where markets are going to expand, while Europe is in stagnation? Having the freedom to do that and be released from the EU is going to be good for GDP, business and employment in the UK.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I hear exactly what the right hon. Gentleman says, and he is right to an extent. However, let us suppose I were to give him £1 this year and £1.50 next year, and ask him how his income from the Member for the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar had changed. He could say that it had grown by a staggering 50%”, but it would have grown by only 50p. When you are starting with something very small and you say that the percentage is going to be very big as a result of the growth, you still have something very small at the end of it. We should bear that in mind.

I return to the point about the Brexit damage of 5% of GDP and the effect of this Australian trade deal, depending on which type of modelling we use. The first model gave us a 0.02% gain—that was on the Armington trade theory spectrum, which all members of the Committee know just like that. When we moved to the Melitz-style spectrum, we were given a figure of 0.08%, which represents growth of 400%. That is a fantastic bit of growth, but this was still only 0.08%. If Brexit is 5%, this is like saying, “I am losing £500 but the Australian trade deal is taking in £2, if I am using the pessimistic option, or £8, if I am using the optimistic option.” That still leaves the UK economy as a whole £498 to £492 out of pocket by this entire transaction. The joy and boosterism that comes from some parts of the former Government, at least, should be seen in that context. If we add in all the other trade deals—the American trade deal represents 0.2% of GDP, the New Zealand one that we are considering today represents about 0.1 % or 0.2% of GDP and the CPTPP represents about 0.08% of GDP—we might find ourselves up around the £40 mark. It is a bit like going to the races with £500 and coming back with 40 quid. That is basically what is happening here.

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[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Absolutely. This is the tension that there has always been in trade policy over the years—do you abandon your countryside and rural places? I use stark words deliberately, but it is a sliding scale between various points. Political judgments are made for various reasons, and people will come down on one side or the other. I do not belittle what the hon. Gentleman says, and is important that we recognise that spectrum. I am sure that he can argue the other way as well if he chooses. He is presumably making a devil’s advocate point or giving perhaps a strongly held viewpoint. It is a good point, but it is a point of debate. That is what we are here to do—to enlighten and illuminate that debate.

[Sammy Wilson]

rose—

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I will make a little progress and then come back to the right hon. Gentleman.

The point I was making earlier was that the UK now finds itself in the position of being outside the European Union, of talking about the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, which we will be debating at tomorrow’s Committee, and of not being able to export anything anywhere in the world without masses of paperwork. The proverbial prawn sandwich or the chicken leg cannot be exported without an equivalent weight of paper accompanying it. We know the difficulties that we have in sending that to the European Union, and we are talking about CPTPP and trade agreements. The reality is that it will still be easier to send stuff to the European Union under the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement than it will be under all those other trade agreements, so let us put trade agreements into some kind of context. They are not a panacea. They are not a replacement for the European Union. What we have done is raise our fences to the European Union to a certain height and lowered some of our fences to other countries, although they may still be higher or even at the same height as those to the European Union, but the global point is that exporters from the UK are finding it difficult to send stuff anywhere. Anything that has to go anywhere requires paper, admin or tariffs. That is a fact for the United Kingdom and a fact that is often missed in our understanding of trade.

[Sammy Wilson]

The hon. Gentleman has rightly said that there are tensions between producers in the UK, who may well find themselves with greater competition as a result of trade deals, but that there are also benefits to consumers, who, of course, far outweigh the number of producers that might be affected and who will benefit from cheaper prices. Will he not also accept that we can help our producers be more competitive, especially now that we are out of the EU, by reducing their costs and removing some of the costly and unnecessary regulations, which push those costs up and make it more difficult for those producers to compete anyway?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I can kind of see a bit of what the right hon. Gentleman says. For example, perhaps we should not have to stick ear tags on lambs before sending them to market. At one time, we did not have that hassle of having to put a 50 pence tag in a lamb’s ear, but then consumers said that they wanted traceability; they wanted to know where the lambs came from. We then have a debate between this regulation that is costly to the farmer/crofter and the consumer wanting a bit of traceability. Again, there is a political decision to be made. Do we want to get rid of tags in sheep’s ears, for instance—that is the easiest example that I can think of. That is one of the problems of getting rid of regulations. Which regulations do we want to get rid of? That is a legitimate point of debate, but if we get rid of our regulations, we do have to understand what the impact will be, and who does not want that regulation to be got rid of. Certainly, getting rid of ear tags in sheep—if anybody is listening—would be a help, because they often get lost in the fences. However, I do not think anybody will be listening and we will still have ear tags in our sheep to deal with.

The shadow International Trade Secretary mentioned that, in the early days, there had been a lot of headline chasing. When Brexit was being done, the Government were scrambling around for ideas. Freeports was one such idea—let’s have freeports, they said—but GDP was unquantifiable, whereas, as I have said, the Government have quantified the GDP of Brexit. The Government then alighted on free trade agreements. I have said this often—members of the International Trade Committee are probably ready to fall asleep at this point—but it reminds me of Neville Chamberlain coming back from Munich talking about peace in our time. This is the equivalent; it is trade deals in our time. It is not about what they mean for the economy, but about them looking quite good.

A former Trade Minister—I will not mention his name—was telling me that he had a bit of boosterism from the former Prime Minister. He was told to get on planes and to sign these bits of paper. He was very, very positive. If it was a car he was selling, I would have bought it. When I asked him what was under the bonnet—or what was the GDP gain from this trade deal—he did not know. That goes back to the point about there being no strategy; it is very concerning that he does not know what his trade decisions are doing for the economy. Unfortunately, with all the difficulty and fluff, the economic gain of trade deals is not being looked at, which is disappointing. Certainly, Brexit has left the GDP of the UK weaker, and at a time when we face a cost of living crisis, things are more expensive and people have less money in their pockets.

The final point I want to touch on is food security and what is happening around the antipodean sale of meats. They will say that they do not fill their quota at the moment, but what they will be enabled to do is to fill it more than the European Union’s free trade deal, which is more restrictive than the UK’s—the UK’s is one of the most relaxed, or lax, trade deals. The best cuts can be sent, which helps them with what they call carcase efficiency, with certain parts sent to specific parts of the world, meaning they can take the top part of the market away quite effectively. As I have said, Professor Lorand Bartels found this the most liberal case that he could think of in the world of anybody opening up their food area.

The deal also enables what I would describe as a parachute market for Australia and New Zealand. If something goes wrong in another market, they now have somewhere else to put a big quantity into. That might have an effect in future of displacing and damaging production in the UK. If the current UK is used as a parachute market for a number of years and then the other market is re-established, we cannot turn on production as quickly as we can turn it off. That is a big problem.

I have mentioned that CPTPP will not be like the European Union. It is not a replacement; it is a smaller GDP and it will be more difficult still to sell into that market. In the CPTPP, I do not think that access into one country will be access into all countries, as it is for the European Union, although that will be clarified tomorrow for those who want to tune in to the International Trade Committee.

We have a situation where the Australians cannot believe they have done so well. New Zealand television is utterly amazed and asking, “How come it is so easy?”. It is because the UK Government have been seen coming. People know they are desperate to get into CPTPP and they think that if they get these trade agreements done, that will happen. That goes back to the point made by the hon. Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) that the antipodeans were furious about the changes in the ’70s; this time perhaps they feel collectively that they have got one over the Poms, as they might describe them.

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[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. In Scotland “jags” means something that goes into your arm, usually against covid—I think they are called jabs down here—but I think he means the Jaguar car. Of course it is in Australia’s power to buy the Jaguar car; it is then Australia that puts the tariff on the cars coming in. If Australians are moaning that they cannot buy Jaguar cars because of the tariffs, they need to see the Australian Government, who, despite what they say, are not producing any cars and whose very free and open market is not as free and open a market as they let on.

[Sammy Wilson]

To give the hon. Gentleman a piece of good news, adjacent to my constituency there are already 150 new jobs making drilling machines for the mining industry exclusively in Australia. There are already benefits showing through in the manufacturing of goods and 150 people adjacent to my constituency are employed in a factory and enjoying those benefits.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

That is fantastic news, and it has happened before the free trade agreement. That just goes to show that the fantastic people of Northern Ireland do not need Westminster to give them a free trade agreement.

I am coming to the end of my remarks. I will give several views to the Chamber on the vote tonight. This trade deal is globally good for the UK, as the figures show, but its level of goodness is very small compared with the badness of the Brexit debacle. Is it good for Scotland? The Scottish Government do not seem to think so. They were engaged with perhaps the way that the umbrella engages with the rain: more with disdain than any sort of welcome.

When it comes to fish and agriculture, we know that Brexit has been most damaging for the highlands and islands of Scotland, including my constituency. The Government cannot break down the effect of this agreement, but it looks like it will also be damaging. That means we have two events that are locally damaging. I am here as a constituency MP. I can weigh up the arguments as Chair of the Committee, but I am mindful that I vote as a constituency MP. All of Brexit—the entire process—has been economically damaging, but the final upshot of this deal is that in years to come, as we move towards independence, that damage will be used as an argument against Scotland being independent. It is a very disappointing state of affairs that this deliberate policy—chosen in Westminster—will do that to us, so we will not be listening to arguments like that in the future.

It is disappointing that this debate was not done properly, and that Members did not get to put their tuppence worth and argue the points that we have debated with the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) and my good friend from Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), because there are legitimate things to consider, to ponder and to change our minds about so that we can get a good—and a better—deal. Some people would say that the European Union has struck that better deal. Had we remained in the European Union, we would not have lost the 5% of GDP. We may well have got the GDP gains anyway from the trade deals that the European Union has just done with those two countries. The upshot might well be that there has been no gain whatever in these trade deals, because they would have come had we not decided to damage the beer producers and exporters of Kent and many others places that have been trading, as has been done.

Steel Safeguards

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the details of the particular businesses in his constituency that have found that their markets are distorted and disturbed by the illegal invasion of Ukraine. One reason I have decided to strip away all restrictions on Ukrainian steel is that we want to make sure that, as Ukraine, in due course, is able to get back up and running in those industries, its high-quality steel has a route to market in the UK. We wish to continue to be its champion and supporter, and to ensure that that democracy can rebuild its economy as quickly as possible.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I appreciate that it is sometimes necessary in the national interest to impose trade restrictions, but free trade is the way to increase competition, bring down prices and raise living standards. The fact is that energy-intensive industries in the United Kingdom have been shedding jobs for many years now, partly because of the energy price costs that have resulted from the Government’s net zero policy. Does the necessity for today’s decision not give the Government another reason to examine the wisdom of the current net zero policy, given that the priority for our competitors is cheap energy produced from fossil fuel?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

As I said earlier, we have provided over £600 million in financial relief to the steel industry since 2013 to address high electricity costs, and the recent security strategy on energy continues to support that. This will be an issue for some time, which is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy continues to work with all energy-intensive industries to find solutions. However, it is absolutely right to continue pushing forwards on our net zero agenda, because we need to have security of electricity and other energy supplies and to move to clean energy sources as we transition away from hydrocarbons. In that way, we will have not only security but clean energy, and we need the rest of the world to do the same. If we do not do these things, large parts of our planet will no longer be habitable, because of the climate change impacts.

Trade Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

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

[Greg Hands]

I note what my right hon. Friend says. The Government are open to further discussion on these matters. Nobody denies the importance and seriousness of the situation in Xinjiang, nor this Government’s continued commitment to combating human rights abuses, or that human rights cannot and should not be traded away in a trade agreement or anything like it.

I should emphasise to hon. Members the seriousness with which the Government approach human rights issues as they relate to trade. We are taking action and will continue to do so. The UK has long supported the promotion of our values globally. We are clear that doing more trade does not have to come at the expense of human rights. In fact, as I am sure my hon. and right hon. Friends will agree, there is a strong positive correlation between countries that trade freely and human rights.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I think we all appreciate the work that the Foreign Secretary has done to ensure that firms look at their supply lines to check that they are not purchasing goods produced through slave labour or through human rights abuses. Now that the United Kingdom is out of the EU, we want to stand on the world stage as a global leader. What objections does the Minister have to putting in the law of this country that we will not tolerate trade deals with countries that abuse their population by engaging in genocide?

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Lords amendment 8 seeks to ensure that there is no discrimination in the UK internal market against Northern Ireland goods and services, and I very much share that aim. As the House will be aware, the Government have been unequivocal in their commitment to unfettered access for Northern Ireland goods moving to the rest of the UK market. That means no declarations, tariffs, new regulatory checks, customs checks or additional approvals for Northern Ireland businesses to place goods on the UK market. I can further assure the House that the Government are already fully committed to ensuring there are no barriers to discrimination within the UK internal market, as this amendment seeks to prevent.

[Sammy Wilson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Greg Hands]

I am going to make a little bit more progress, with apologies to the right hon. Gentleman. He obviously has a special interest in this space, but I am conscious that time is moving on.

Turning to the amendments concerning the Trade and Agriculture Commission, the Government have offered alternatives to Lords amendments 9 and 10. We also accept Lords amendments 11, 12, 29 and 30. These amendments put the commission on a statutory footing to help to inform the report required by section 42 of the Agriculture Act 2020. The Trade and Agriculture Commission was originally set up by the Department for International Trade in July 2020 to boost the scrutiny of trade deals. That is alongside other steps that the Government have taken to ensure that relevant interests are taken into account at every step of the negotiation process, from public consultation at the start, dedicated trade advisory groups during the process and independent scrutiny of the final deal at the end.

The Trade and Agriculture Commission will advise the Secretary of State for International Trade on certain measures set out in section 42 of the Agriculture Act concerning the consistency of certain free trade agreement measures with UK statutory protections for animal and plant health, animal welfare and the environment. The Government amendments were modified in the other place, however, also to include advice on human health. The Government do not consider the inclusion of human health to be appropriate for the Trade and Agriculture Commission, as it would duplicate the work of other appropriate bodies. Just because human health will not be in the remit of the Trade and Agriculture Commission does not mean that there will be no scrutiny in that area. It must still be covered in the section 42 report under the Agriculture Act, for which the Secretary of State may seek advice from any person considered to be independent and to have relevant expertise.

I hope that that has been a useful introduction to the Lords amendments we have in front of us. I am looking forward to the debate and to responding later.

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[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I am an internationalist. I came into politics to encourage Britain to play a more than influential role on the international stage. We certainly have a track record of building alliances and stepping forward when other nations hesitate as a force for good, but the world is changing fast: power bases are shifting and threats are diversifying and, indeed, intensifying. What the debate illustrates is a temporary absence in clarity about what we now stand for, what we believe in and what we are willing to defend. Those are the basic benchmarks that frame our international standing, and they can all be summed up in the absence of an integrated review. We await the Government’s defence, security and foreign policy review—to give it its full name—which is the critical statement of intent that defines our ambitions on the international stage, assesses the current and emerging threats and gives clarity on how our soft and hard power capabilities should be upgraded. Without that, the term global Britain lacks direction, and there is no strategic or doctrinal clarity over how to approach the geopolitical challenges posed not least by China.

International opinion on China is clearly changing, following its conduct in suppressing the pandemic’s outbreak, challenging security laws in Hong Kong and continued militarisation of the South China sea as well as, more widely, snaring ever more countries in debt through its One Belt, One Road programme and telecoms programmes. The Foreign Secretary broke new ground last week by speaking so robustly about China’s breaches in human rights, with over a million Uyghurs in political re-education camps, extensive use of surveillance targeting minorities and systematic restrictions on the freedom of religion. That came on the back of the Government’s changes to telecoms policy to remove high-risk vendors from our critical national infrastructure.

We must not lose momentum. For too long, the west bit its tongue as China ignored international trade norms and exercised human rights abuses while we still hoped that it would mature into a responsible international citizen. That clearly is not going to happen. China is on a geopolitical collision course with the west, taking full advantage of our wobbly international rules-based order while we remain in denial.

Today, President Trump is in his last day of office, and President-elect Biden has made it clear that his foreign policy objectives are to recommit to building western alliances and to attempt to address the geopolitical challenges posed by China. The Lords amendment is about offering strategic clarity directed not just at China and standing up to its human rights abuses, but at the United States, our closest ally. This is an opportunity for Britain to craft a post-Brexit international role as we assume the G7 presidency.

The world watched and hesitated when genocide took place in Rwanda and, indeed, in Syria. Let us not hesitate again. Let us have the moral courage to stand tall on what we believe in and what we are willing to defend. It saddens me that I am having to rebel today to encourage my Government to take the moral high ground. It should be our default position.

[Sammy Wilson]

I rise to support Lords amendment 8, in relation to Northern Ireland, and Lords amendment 3, in relation to acts of genocide. First of all, I will deal with Lords amendment 8. I believe that it is a necessity that we have in the Bill a commitment that Northern Ireland will not be excluded from the benefits of any trade agreements that this country reaches with the rest of the world. People in Northern Ireland are still reeling from that impact that the withdrawal agreement, and particularly the Northern Ireland protocol, have had on their economy and indeed on their preferences and their ability to purchase goods from other parts of the United Kingdom.

Despite some of the efforts made to undo and mitigate the impact of the protocol, it is clear that the withdrawal agreement that we reached with the EU will have a detrimental impact on the Northern Ireland economy. Lords amendment 8 seeks to ensure that, when we enter into future trade agreements with other parts of the world, the impact and benefit of those agreements are not reduced as a result of the protocol. A commitment that no agreement can be ratified until it is ensured that Northern Ireland will have unfettered access to the GB market and services coming from GB is very important.

Lords amendment 3 concerns genocide. I have listened to the arguments—that we are handing control over to the courts; that we are diminishing the role of Parliament; that such a situation would be unworkable—but I believe that, first of all, this country has an important duty to send out a message when entering into trade agreements with other parts of the world—that if the Governments of those countries are guilty of abusing their population or seeking to wipe out certain sections of their population, we will not do business with them. We have talked about taking a lead on the global stage now that we have left the EU. Well, here is an opportunity to make clear in legislation where we stand on this issue and that if Governments wish to do business with the fifth biggest economy in the world, we expect certain standards of them.

I do not accept that we would be giving too much power to judges. First of all, this is a very specific power and not the thin end of the wedge, as has been suggested, and if we wished to give more power to the judges, we would have to amend the legislation. We are simply saying, “Look, the only body capable of making a judgment about whether genocide has occurred is the courts.” In fact, it would be wrong for Parliament to have that power. It would be abused, and our arguments against genocide could be diminished, because people could say we made them only for political reasons, or because the majority in this Parliament do not like those people or have some other axe to grind. I therefore think it is important that that power is in the Bill.

Assurance needs to be given to people in Northern Ireland that we still remain part of the United Kingdom and will have the benefits of United Kingdom trade deals, and assurance still needs to be given to people across the world who are being persecuted. The best way of doing that is to include both amendments in the Bill.

[Anthony Mangnall]

It is a pleasure to speak on this Bill. I rise to speak against Lords amendments 1 and 3. I start by saying how sorry I am that I will not be in the same Lobby as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani). I have gone into battle with them in the past and hope to do so again.

At the start of the Minister’s statement, he made a point about the opportunities that Parliament would have to ensure that human rights were included in trade deals, and that mechanisms could be provided to ensure that every trade deal had the proper level of parliamentary scrutiny. I would welcome his going further—and intervening, if he must—and telling us how Parliament will be able effectively to ensure that every Member can scrutinise, debate and discuss these issues.

Trade Bill

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

No, I will make some progress. The Government are strongly committed to transparency, as demonstrated by the steps we have already taken.

New clause 12 proposes a review of free trade agreements every five years after entry into force. We have already established regular dialogue with the International Trade Committee, and that is perhaps the best forum to provide information and assessment of the UK’s wider trade environment and trade relationships to Parliament.

New clause 18 seeks to give Parliament and the devolved legislatures binding votes on, or vetoes over, international agreements, which would be to fundamentally undermine the royal prerogative and, worse, limit our flexibility to negotiate the deals that will best serve the interests of UK consumers and communities.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I accept the Minister’s point that for devolved Parliaments to be able to undermine a national trade deal would be wrong. However, will he give us some guidance on the position for Northern Ireland? We may find ourselves having not continuity deals, but new deals, and we could be excluded from some of the benefits of those deals. How will he make an assessment? How will he enable the devolved Administration to have an input into decisions made on those deals if we find that we are disadvantaged by being excluded from them?

[Greg Hands]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The first thing to say is that I have regular dialogue with his colleague the Minister for the Economy. I am meeting her tomorrow—indeed, I am meeting her twice—to talk about these issues. I reiterate that Northern Ireland remains part of the UK customs area and will benefit from UK free trade agreements. We have been absolutely categoric on both those points. As I say, new clause 18 seeks to give Parliament a veto over those arrangements and to ensure that the Government seek approval from the devolved legislatures on the final agreement. I am in regular contact with the Ministers for the devolved Administrations on these issues.

I will now address new clauses 7 to 9, and others in relation to standards. In answer to the intervention from the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), let me say that we have already given cast-iron commitments, during debate on this Bill and the Agriculture Bill, that we will not be diluting standards in any area, or in any way, following the UK’s departure from the EU.

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[Paul Girvan]

I am a great Unionist. I believe that we are part of the United Kingdom and we should be working together to ensure that we get the best bang for our buck, to use an American term, as a United Kingdom. That is vital.

We already have protection in some areas. I come from an engineering background. We lead the world in electrical standards. Many other countries manufacture a lot more, but we lead in electrical safety. We set those safety standards. We make sure that goods coming into our country are made to those standards. Sony makes the monitors that we have in the Chamber. It makes specific monitors that are only for the UK, because we have such stringent electrical standards. It has the flexibility to do that. There are farms in Europe and throughout the world that make food to sell into our market that is bespoke, just to suit our market. That can be done, and it is being done. I want to make sure that we give our farmers and our industry an opportunity to export on to the world stage, so that our product is sold. We can use this Bill to do that.

[Sammy Wilson]

Northern Ireland farmers export to 70 countries in the world, many of which have lower standards than the rest of the United Kingdom. The goods are valued because of the standard of the product. Apart from the fact that there will be a requirement to change primary legislation, is that not yet another indication that there is no incentive for us to lower standards, because we would lose those markets that we are exporting to?

[Paul Girvan]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. We do not want to lower our standards. We do not want a race to the bottom. We want to bring others up to the standard that we have set. We have set the bar fairly high, but by setting the bar so high, we have additional cost, which makes it more difficult for us to compete on the world stage. It is vital that we address that through whatever measures we have to put in place, with subsidy for our farming, to ensure that our product is still viable and economically possible for the housewife to buy—I used the wrong term; I apologise. We have to ensure that those who are buying their basket of fruit in a supermarket will be able to get the best value for it.

I support the Bill, but I also support new clauses 4 and 7, because they address some of the concerns that we as a nation have and Northern Ireland in particular has.

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[Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)]

I had the privilege of sitting on the Committee of this historic Bill, and I have scrutinised it line by line. I believe that new clauses 5 and 6 strengthen the Bill, as they create the right balance by allowing trade to be conducted efficiently, as well as providing my constituents in Stafford with the protections they deserve. Trade is not an abstract concept; it affects our daily lives. International supply chains are important for so many of the products that we use every day, which is why it is crucial to get the Bill right.

From the Perkins engines made in Staffordshire to the generators produced by General Electric at its sites in Stafford, such factories are a vital link in international supply chains, and they provide jobs in my constituency that are reliant on trade. We must not forget JCB, whose site at Hixon helps to produce the instantly recognisable yellow tractors that are found on so many sites all over the world, not only contributing to the British economy, but helping to promote British businesses and our expert engineering overseas.

The Bill, including new clauses 5 and 6, provides a framework for more prosperous long-term trading opportunities, and it also gives us short-term certainty—something we are all looking for in these unprecedented times. The Secretary of State for International Trade recognises how important trade is for the farming sector, and I am grateful that she was kind enough to visit me in Stafford early this year, and take part in a roundtable with my local farmers. Now that Britain has the opportunity to create its own trade policy, it is vital that we strike the balance between encouraging imports of goods that we need, while also incentivising manufacturing and production on home soil, to sell in Britain and export across the globe.

Britain has some of the highest food standards in the world, which we should be proud of from both a farming and animal welfare perspective. Many of my constituents contacted me to say that they are extremely concerned that the Bill potentially allows for food standards to be lowered, and I recognise why some Members of the House will support new clause 4. Having sat on the Bill Committee, however, I was able to raise that matter directly with the Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands), and I was grateful for his personal assurances that there will be no compromising of our standards on food safety, animal welfare, and the environment. Combined with the new trade and agriculture mission that the Secretary of State and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have set up to support the NFU, I am reassured that the Government are upholding their manifesto commitment on food standards.

[Sammy Wilson]

I know that I have a very short time so I just want to make one point very quickly. I am disappointed that the Government could not find any place in this Bill to give a written assurance that Northern Ireland will be able to participate fully in the international trade deals that we will strike across the world when we leave the EU. That is because they cannot give the assurance that the Northern Ireland protocol will not stop us benefiting from goods that will come into the United Kingdom as a result of trade deals or, indeed, will not make the process of selling abroad so expensive that it puts us at a disadvantage when it comes to selling in other parts of the world. We believe that we have an economy that is competitive, but it is not competitive, because we are tied through the Northern Ireland protocol to the single market and to the European customs territory, and therefore treated differently from the rest of the United Kingdom. The assurances that the Minister gives verbally cannot, unfortunately, override the compelling legal commitments in the withdrawal agreement.

[Greg Hands]

With the leave of the House, I would like to respond to what has been a wide-ranging and often well-informed debate.

This Bill is mainly about continuity, but also about sending a clear message that we welcome traders—that we are network Britain, not fortress Britain. On standards, I remind the House that none of the 20 continuity agreements that Parliament has ratified has eroded standards in any way. Not one domestic standard in relation to animal welfare, the environment, human rights or labour has been eroded by any of those agreements.

Let me try to deal quickly with four of the myths propagated by the Opposition. First, on ISDS and protection for investment, this is in the UK’s interests. The UK has never lost a case in any of these tribunals, but for 40 years UK companies, with jobs at stake, have brought these cases. Eighty of the cases—about 1,000 overall—were brought by UK companies and UK investors directly, with UK jobs at stake. That is why this can be very important for UK business and for the jobs of our constituents in making sure that businesses operating abroad are protected.

The second myth relates to devolution. We have been clear that we would not usually legislate in devolved areas without the consent of devolved authorities and never without consulting them. The hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) referred to convenience. If it is more convenient for the UK to legislate for all four nations, then that is a sensible thing.

In terms of standards, we have seen new clause 11, and new clause 7 is even more extreme. New clause 11 wants to make sure that no goods can enter the UK unless they have been produced at standards

“as high as, or higher than, standards which at the time of import applied under UK law”.

That could have massive unforeseen consequences. The Opposition think they are talking about chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef, but are they actually able to look people in the eye and say that cocoa from the Ivory Coast has been produced to at least as high environmental standards as in the UK? Are they able to say that beans from Egypt are being produced to at least as high labour standards? Are they able to say that tea from Sri Lanka comes with the same high labour standards? I think they are putting a lot of this country’s existing trade at risk.

The fourth key myth is about the NHS. The NHS remains protected and will never be on the table at any trade deal, and that includes the prices we pay for drugs.

We have had excellent speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), for Burnley (Antony Higginbotham), for Buckingham (Greg Smith), for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon), for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) and for Stafford (Theo Clarke), from my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), and from my hon. Friends the Members for Witney (Robert Courts), for Montgomeryshire (Craig Williams), for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) and for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly). I thank them for their contributions and the Opposition for theirs.



The Bill is very important in securing the continuity of up to 40 EU trade agreements, the establishment of a Trade Remedies Authority to protect UK businesses and jobs from unfair trade practice, and access to the £1.3 billion global market in Government procurement.

We should accept new clause 5 and related amendments to allow better sharing of data. We should reject the other amendments, which are either unnecessary, such as new clause 4, or, in cases such as new clauses 7 and 11, potentially deeply damaging for this country’s economy.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 5 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.