Global Britain

Stephen Farry Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When we entered the EU, those close relationships with allies such as Canada, New Zealand and Australia fundamentally became less close. We have a huge opportunity, as we leave the EU, to build better relationships. We have already named Australia and New Zealand as two of our priority trading partners, and we want to work with Canada, particularly on accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, so that we can build up those strong relationships.

[Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)]

Does the Secretary of State recognise that the UK does not, in fact, face a stark choice between maximising trade with either the European Union or the rest of the world? It is perfectly possible for the UK to maximise trade with the rest of the world through the European Union and through UK leadership in ensuring that the EU is open to the rest of the world. This false choice between the two could lead to the UK losing out on a range of opportunities.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. We want to have a great trading relationship with the EU, and we want to have a great trading relationship with the rest of the world. Our ambition is to ensure that 80% of UK trade is covered by free trade deals within three years, and that will mean lower tariffs for British producers sending their goods into the EU and also right around the world.

This is hugely important for levelling up our country, from the potters of Staffordshire and the sheep farmers of Wales to the robotics manufacturers in the north-east. By lowering tariffs and striking advanced digital agreements, we will give a boost to local economies, which will increase the number of jobs, increase wages and promote growth in those areas. That is the way we are going to level up our country: through enterprise and trade bringing more opportunities.

We are ambitious about securing a pioneering free trade agreement with Japan, which is already our main source of investment in Asia, employing more than 150,000 people across the UK. There are also fantastic opportunities to expand our trade with Australia in areas as diverse as defence, education, digital and infrastructure. These opportunities with the US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand are significant and will bring real value, but there is also an opportunity for us to become part of world-leading trade arrangements such as the CPTPP, partnering with 11 of the fastest-growing Pacific economies with consumer markets worth over $6 trillion.

We have the opportunity to make great free trade agreements across the world, and global Britain can once again become the ideas factory of the world, building the networks, the trust and the confidence that will underpin the success of British businesses in markets of the future. That is why we recently held the Africa investment summit, breaking down barriers to trade, building business links and forging new relationships in a continent that includes more than half of the world’s 15 fastest-growing economies.

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[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

I would not be in this House if I did not accept the 2014 referendum result. There would not be this huge number of Scottish National party Members of Parliament if we did not accept the 2014 referendum. As Ruth Davidson herself said, it is entirely right, honourable and indeed expected that the Scottish National party should continue to advocate for the very policy that it is in existence to try to deliver. There is nothing undemocratic or dishonourable about me and my colleagues advancing that cause.

None the less, even with accepting that the Brexiteers in the House have won—I can accept that—who, no matter what their Brexit position, can fail to have been moved by the scenes in the European Parliament yesterday, when parliamentarians from across the continent joined hands and sang that great Scots music hall poem, “Auld Lang Syne”. It is a song and a poem of friendship and of solidarity across the continent of Europe. What a contrast to the high hand of UK Unionism that we have seen just this week. This is what I mean when I say to colleagues on the Government Benches to please engage their brain.

The Scottish Government published a very serious document, seeking to alleviate the pressures on that part of the United Kingdom with regard to the movement of people. Scotland’s problem is people leaving, not people coming. It is inconceivable that the UK Government could even have read that proposal before they rejected it out of hand. I feel like they are doing my job for me, because in parts of my constituency—admittedly, it is a yes voting constituency, but it has always had the highest Tory vote in Glasgow—the people on whom they are relying, who are part of the coalition they need to keep the Union together, have not necessarily painted their faces blue and run into the forest declaring support for independence, but my goodness they want to have a conversation with my party in a way that they did not in the 2014 referendum. I ask colleagues on the Government Benches just to reflect on that, and on the fact that every single compromise that was offered by the Scottish Government and by the Scottish National party in this House over the past four years has been rejected out of hand—every single one of them.

I accept that the European Union—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), whom I am coming to, is yawning at this point. I accept that the European Union is the great devil for some people, but we just do not see it like that. The European Union as a project was created as Europe stood at the gates of hell and all of the history that went before it. Where there was Nazism and communism, it displaced those ideas and opened up economies and opened up markets. It allowed the clash of ideas in free and fair elections to take place all across the European continent. It still has a job to do in some parts of it.

The Secretary of State prayed in aid the Government’s trade strategy. The European Union, a place in the world where once there were warring navies in the waters and warring air forces in the sky, now has trading, shipping and exchanges of ideas and of commerce that I thought Conservatives would have welcomed, but perhaps I am at risk of re-running the old argument.

[Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. In responding to a lot of the very strong libertarian views on free trade that have been advocated by those on the Government Benches, does he recognise that, in fact, the European Union represents, albeit imperfectly, the most advanced example in human history of economic integration and free trade? Furthermore, in recognising the perspective of Scotland, Northern Ireland has its very particular remain perspective, too. The Global Britain brand that has been put forward, albeit a very convenient and simplistic concept, does not take into account the fact that Britain is not the same as the UK, and that Northern Ireland is excluded from that branding.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald]

Ah, well, the hon. Gentleman, who is new to the House, will have to get used to that. Those on the Government Benches have a habit of forgetting that the UK is a political state. It is a union of nations across these islands, even if they do not govern as such. He is, of course, correct. Let us take freedom of movement as an example. It is one of the greatest instruments of economic freedom, of peace and of the exchange of ideas that has ever existed, yet Minister after Minister fall over themselves to get to that Dispatch Box to decry freedom of movement. It is the very instrument that this country was enthusiastically setting up within the European Union. Of course, we should keep freedom of movement, and if the United Kingdom does not want to keep it, then I ask it please to think of the Scottish context, and work with us to deliver something that will help our economy, which is something that the Government keep telling us that they want to do.

Madam Deputy Speaker, if you will indulge me very briefly, I want to acknowledge the contribution that my own party has made to the European project over a great many years, starting, of course, with the great Winnie Ewing. She is the only person in Scotland ever to be elected to all three Parliaments—the European Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and, of course, to this place in a historic by-election in Hamilton in 1967. There was also Alan McCartney, Professor Sir Neil MacCormick, Ian Hudghton, my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith), and, more recently, Christian Allard, a French Scot representing Scotland in the European Parliament, Heather Anderson, who was appointed only earlier this week and, of course, Dr Aileen McLeod, who gave a fantastic speech yesterday, outlining our ambitions to be back in the European Union, and hopefully quickly.

Turning to the trade issue briefly, when the Secretary of State was at the Dispatch Box earlier, she responded to an absurd intervention from the hon. Member for Wellingborough, who seemed to blame the European Union for some kind of restriction that meant the United Kingdom could not do more in terms of international aid. The Secretary of State tried to lay on an almost Churchillian defence of free trade and economic freedom. It is the same Secretary of State, as the shadow Secretary of State pointed out, who, eight weeks into the job, had to come to Parliament to apologise for the fact that the Government had broken not one, not two, but three court orders banning weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. She was eight weeks into the job. This was only about four months ago. It is surely inconceivable that she should still be at that Dispatch Box today. We know that there is a reshuffle coming at some point, so who knows if she will still be there, but my goodness if that is a candidate for International Trade Secretary, she is in no position to come here and expect us to buy into her agenda on proper free trade that genuinely helps alleviate poverty and abides by the rules.