EU Trade Agreements: Replication

Tom Pursglove Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

I am grateful for the way in which the hon. Lady continues to press the importance of this issue; it is a view that I share. We set out in our legislation that we would publish the text at the point of signature, not at the point of initialling, and that is what this House ultimately voted for. We also said that we would publish the explanatory memorandum, and that we would set out differences between the original agreement and any changes in a statement, given that the original agreement was already scrutinised by this Parliament when it was introduced as an EU agreement. The hon. Lady raises an important point, however, about future trade agreements that were not covered in the Trade Bill; and following the completion of the Government consultation, I will set out the processes by which we will ensure that both Houses of Parliament are able to get active and real-time scrutiny of the future trade agreements.

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

Is it not the case that, even if we roll agreements over, it is entirely possible to make further enhancements to those agreements in time as an independent trading nation?

[Dr Fox]

Those of us who have been involved in this process from the beginning will remember that it was initially known as transitional adoption—that is, we would adopt the EU agreement with a view to moving on to a more bespoke agreement later. That is still our aim. For example, in our discussions with the Swiss Government at signature on Monday, we talked about our ambitions to enhance that agreement once Britain has left the EU. Our aim for the moment is continuity; ambition comes later.