EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement

Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2017 General Committees

[Greg Hands]

I thank my hon. Friend for asking that very good question. The answer is yes, of course there will be some benefits in looking at the deal and its benefits once we are outside the EU. We remain strongly supportive of the deal. It is UK Government policy to support CETA going through, so of course we welcome it. We would of course look at that as the basis for a future deal. Notwithstanding that, it does not prevent us from having the flexibility also to look at the deal afresh.

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I am grateful to the Minister for his opening remarks. In October the Secretary of State for International Trade apologised to the Committee as there had been no debate before the decision was made in the Council in relation to this agreement, and he promised that time would be made. We then had another apology from the Secretary of State to the International Trade Committee last week, again proffering excuses in relation to timetables.

There is no doubt that this matter should be debated on the Floor of the House. It is not good enough for a deal of such a nature to be debated in this manner. I simply do not buy the excuse of timetabling. I have sat through business questions week after week, and we have had discussions about business collapsing because there has not been enough business going on. It is not good enough to use timetabling as an excuse for this matter not to be debated as it should be.

I say that not just for our benefit. Scotland is, of course, a trading nation and there are many businesses in Scotland that have welcomed this agreement. That does not mean that it should not be scrutinised. In the light of what I call the brief Brexit White Paper, which refers to CETA, we are now looking at a different relationship. The Government will be negotiating trade deals in their own right. It does not bode well if the Government intend to proceed by doing it on their own, without seeking authority, approval and discussion. Hon. Members will have something positive to offer that might be quite instructive in negotiations. It does not bode well if this is the way the Government are to proceed. I ask the Minister to reconsider an opportunity for this matter to be debated on the Floor of the House, because that is the respect the House deserves.

[Greg Hands]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. We warmly welcome parliamentary scrutiny of trade and of this agreement. Those points were made by the Secretary of State when he appeared at some length before the European Scrutiny Committee in October. To go back to the history, the European Scrutiny Committee referred the documents on 7 September, before the European Council meeting on 18 October, with barely two parliamentary sitting weeks in which to get that debate in place. It was not possible. The Committee decided to release the scrutiny override on the signature of the agreement but not on the provisional acceptance and not on the conclusion of the agreement.

When it came to the European Council meeting, of course all three decisions were taken together as a package, so it was not possible for us to, as it were, sign up to the signature of the agreement; it was “take it or leave it” on all three parts. It was decided that it was strongly in the UK national interest for us to agree to it, rather than follow the route that was ultimately taken by Belgium, among others—although it also signed up.

The Secretary of State appeared before the European Scrutiny Committee on 26 October at a stand-alone hearing, at which the hon. Member for Swansea West was definitely present, to give extensive evidence on the reasons for what happened. We have all worked very hard with business managers, and I am sure that you, Sir Edward, will have noticed other things that have come along to take charge of aspects of the parliamentary business calendar, such as the two days last week taken by the debate on article 50, or the important three-day debate under way downstairs at this moment on the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill.

The Secretary of State has at all points set out his strong preference for a debate on the Floor of the House, and we would of course prefer that and welcome the scrutiny. However, it has simply not been possible, given the limited number of days in the parliamentary calendar, for us to do that. I am confident that the right thing is for us to debate the issue in Committee, giving Parliament the chance to scrutinise the agreement in advance of the European Parliament debate during the parliamentary recess on 15 February.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Ahmed-Sheikh]

I am sure that the Minister agrees that it is reasonable for us to expect the Secretary of State to have a handle on the business to come before Parliament over a period of time. That was promised on two separate occasions. Does the Minister agree that at the very least we should be able to rely on Secretaries of State to keep their promises to the House?

[Greg Hands]

As I have already explained, and as you will know, Sir Edward, I was deputy Chief Whip for some time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geraint Davies]

More than an irony—a tragedy. The view of some, apparently, is that we should move out of the orbit of the European Court of Human Rights, which supports the fundamental values of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, and into the orbit of arbitration courts whose basic remit relates to the interests of the investor, as opposed to the wider interests of the environment. If the Minister has looked at the detail of the chapters of CETA, he will have observed that the investor chapter is armed with arbitration courts that trump national and international law, but that there are no such teeth in the environment chapter, for instance. There is no enforceability of the Paris agreement that we have all signed up to in order to save the planet. Nor, for that matter, is there any enforceability of labour rights.

We need a debate, because ICS is down the road—I accept that it has not yet come in and we can do the other bits first, but there is a concern that that is an unnecessary and dangerous prospect. I do not want to run through hundreds of cases, but there was a famous case in which Obama said to TransCanada, “We don’t want this sand oil pipeline coming in from Canada to the US, because it is a breach of the Paris agreement.” As I understand it, the case has now been dropped because Donald Trump has taken over the presidency, but TransCanada was going to sue the US for $15 billion. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent North mentioned ratcheting and reassurances about health services; there was a case in which Slovakia attempted to renationalise part of its health service and was penalised in court with fines. Hon. Members may remember that at the last election the Labour party stood up and said that it wanted to freeze energy prices; one may or may not like that idea, but Argentina was sued for $1 billion under ISDS by energy companies from America and Europe for doing exactly that. Philip Morris, famously, has been pursuing a case against Australia and Uruguay to stop plain tobacco packaging, which was introduced to reduce deaths from cancer.

The problem with these courts is that they are secret, they have a narrow remit, they are run by commercial lawyers, they are inconsistent in outcomes and they do not normally have appeals. Under the new ICS they will have appeals, but they will not adopt the doctrine of precedent, so one court’s verdict may not inform the next court. The Council of Europe, which I mentioned earlier, has therefore said, “Hold on—we are very concerned about the investment court system, but if and when it does come in, it should be subject, as a minimum, to a number of constraints. In accordance with the European Court of Human Rights, there should be one-year opt-outs with six-year investor protection, and there should be actual damages rather than the fantasy projections of profit that have been sued for.”

I have already mentioned the problems with secrecy and lack of accountability. The Secretary of State seemed to think that it was marvellous that we should be able to go into a library on our own and have a look at the CETA documents, without taking photocopies. Obviously, no one can really understand what they are looking at and gain a meaningful view in the amount of time they are given. It seems to have been a bit of a joke, to put it mildly.

There are other issues that the Minister may want to respond to. There is widespread concern about European standards, for example, in relation to genetically modified food and other food standards, so can he give us any assurances that we will not be slipping to the lowest common denominator in health and equality standards? There are concerns that the precautionary principle, which has been a principle of EU law, has not in fact been instilled into CETA.

People are also concerned that there is a move away from openness in clinical trials. As Members may be aware, the clinical trials directive requires pharmaceutical companies to go public with the outcomes of their clinical trials. As I understand it, CETA will give private companies the right to withhold the outcomes of clinical trials. For example, if a company such as the one that manufactured thalidomide found that half the trials for a certain drug were negative and half were positive, it could publish only the half that were positive. What does the Minister have to say about that? What about the issues relating to trade secrets in CETA? He may think that these are minor points, but I want some reassurance.

I am trying to make the case that, given that there are so many issues, we need a proper debate. Parliamentarians are concerned. When we look at VW fixing emissions, for example, we see that there are new opportunities in CETA for trade secrets. If an employee blows the whistle because they discover that their company is harming public health, for example with diesel emissions, or a drug that harms babies—whatever it is—they can be punished by the company. These are issues of concern that require clarity and debate.

There are concerns about labour rights and whether there will be an assurance that International Labour Organisation conventions will be fulfilled. There are concerns about level playing fields and whether procurement will be equal and apposite. There are concerns about winners and losers, which the European Scrutiny Committee has also debated. We are told that there will be an overall GDP gain of something like 0.5%, but which sectors will win and which will lose? Will small companies lose out? The Prime Minister has already said that she will back certain winners, so perhaps motor manufacturers will get a good deal, but there is some fear that Welsh lamb producers could face a 40% tariff after Brexit. We also have the concern, raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North, about geographical indicators. Welsh lamb was not a geographical indicator originally, so in theory someone could sell in Britain lamb that had been produced in Canada and call it Welsh lamb. That is a real problem.

[Ms Ahmed-Sheikh]

It is important to be clear that no one in this debate is against trade—quite the opposite. What we are talking about is the fact that many Members wanted an opportunity to debate this because they have postbags full of letters from people with experience in a variety of areas that they wish to bring to the fore so that they can inform the UK Government’s future trade policy and also voice their concerns. This is not about having a debate for debate’s sake, which feels like what we are doing here; this is about the Government missing an opportunity genuinely to listen to Members who have received representations from constituents who have knowledge in these different areas, some of which the hon. Gentleman has referred to, which are worth hearing. That is why this is just not up to standard.

[Geraint Davies]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that excellent point. I must say that, even though this debate has been buried in a foxhole, I have received hundreds of emails from people across the country saying, “At least you’re doing something about it” in having this sitting. I appreciate that that is better than nothing, but this is such a big issue that we need a wider debate.

The Sun carried a half-page article under the headline, “EU deal will give pasties a pasting”, because there is reasonable concern about the Cornish pasty and geographical indicators. The Italians and the French have been slightly quicker off the mark in registering champagne, various sorts of cheeses and pastas and all the rest of it, than us. We have caught up a bit, but there need to be clear undertakings that there will be new geographical indicators so that we can have protection. We know that the Americans and Canadians are used to global brands, while we are more used to a European approach, so those issues need to be talked about.

The issue of transparency and scrutiny needs to be talked about as this agreement will be the forerunner to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, if it is ever revived, which depends on Donald, of course. This agreement could be a blueprint for global trade. If it is to be, it needs to embrace not only the best in trade, transparency and harmonisation, but the best in ensuring that trade is compatible with our environmental imperatives to deliver the Paris agreement and human rights as well.

You will be glad to hear, Sir Edward, that I shall close my remarks here. I simply wanted to lay down some markers that this issue is crucial to all parliamentarians—not just across Britain, but across Europe and Canada. We need a proper debate, which we were promised. We want to give this agreement our blessing, subject to that ratification by the House of Commons. That is why I am speaking to this reasonable amendment, which accords with what the European Scrutiny Committee has said. People should not say, “We don’t support this because we heard that you were thinking of a different amendment to start with.” That has nothing to do with this amendment, which is about scrutiny, democracy, accountability and upholding our rights, rather than nodding them away.