Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (Accession)

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

First, I thank my right hon. Friend for all the work he did as International Trade Secretary in pursuing this ambitious agenda. It is great that I have the Under-Secretary of State for International Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), the Minister responsible for exports, on the Front Bench with me, and we are working on a new export strategy precisely to take advantage of the new trade agreements we are negotiating. One thing we are negotiating in all those agreements is a dedicated SME chapter to make it easier for our small and medium-sized enterprises to get through procedures, to get rid of a lot of the red tape and to get into those overseas markets. We will be spending this year helping those companies to do that.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and for early sight of it. I agree with her that forging trade links with the wider Pacific region is a good thing to do. I would also say that membership of CPTPP, if we can join on the right terms, may help to claw back some of the enormous losses that will result from Brexit.

At its heart, however, the Secretary of State’s statement was little more than hopeful rhetoric about the UK’s future trade prospects, and those prospects are by no means certain, as is evidenced by the rather modest rise in Canadian exports to partner countries. Her statement did not tell us in any detail what is actually proposed to be discussed, and it does rather beggar belief that she did not see fit to report to the House the challenges, difficulties and sticking points that she foresees in future negotiations; nor, I suspect, has she given any comfort to those who raised many significant concerns over accession in the last consultation.

What limits will the Secretary of State set in her negotiations on lowering barriers to allow for greater market access for foreign services suppliers? What limits will she place on the removal or weakening of behind-the-border non-tariff barriers, and what about important things such as workers’ rights, product safety regulations and food quality standards? What action does she propose to ensure that the monitoring of partner countries adheres to core International Labour Organisation standards, and that freedom of association is allowed in partner countries? What action will she take to avoid product dumping via partner countries becoming a very real problem? How will she allay concerns over investor-state dispute settlement provisions reducing the Government’s ability to legislate? Unless and until those and many other concerns are fully and transparently addressed, huge anxiety will remain in the public about whether CPTPP is even right for the UK.

[Elizabeth Truss]

What we are announcing today is our intention to accede, and we are talking to all 11 partners of CPTPP to have those preparatory discussions. Our formal application to CPTPP will require 11 different market access agreements to be sought with all the separate nations with which we are negotiating. We have absolutely no intention of lowering our food safety, environmental or labour standards, or any other standards. We are a high quality, high standards nation, and we want to work with the CPTPP countries on that basis. We believe in free trade and the rules-based system, and that is very much what CPTPP stands for.

The hon. Gentleman asked about investor-state dispute settlement systems. We have signed up to a number of those already, in a series of investor agreements that the UK has already made. Indeed, there are investor provisions in the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, which we are seeking to roll over with Canada. We will always ensure that the UK Government have the right to regulate, that we have control of our public services, and that the NHS is not on the table. If we do not get those things in any of the agreements we try to negotiate, we will simply walk away.