Japan Free Trade Agreement

Viscount Waverley Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

The noble Lord is yet another example of the vast expertise that we have in this House on these matters and, because of his special insights into Japan, I welcome his commendation of this agreement. He is right to say that Japan and the UK have very similar attitudes to these matters: both of us look to a rules-based economy in world trade. I can confirm that the matters to which he referred have been rolled over from the EU agreement. The EU agreement had very strong provisions in relation to sustainability, climate and other matters, and he will see once the agreement is made available to the House that we have preserved the impact of those measures. I join the noble Lord’s congratulations of the new Japanese Prime Minister: I wish him a long and successful period in post.

[Viscount Waverley (CB) [V]]

My Lords, while naturally congratulating the Government on the progress with the Japan FTA, is it recognised that it is not in the interests of business to spend years negotiating free trade agreements for them to fail because one stakeholder group or another does not agree with them? Specifically, is a free trade agreement model for beyond the EU now being adopted by the UK in trade negotiations—with people speaking well of the Singaporean approach, for example? Can the Government demonstrate that they are being receptive to the principle of a UK-wide trade alliance that affords better scrutiny and transparency, building back better, and a trade model that ensures trade works for everyone, given some concern of limited evidence of inclusion?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

I thank the noble Viscount for his question. Before I answer it, I first apologise to him for misunderstanding an Oral Question that he asked me the other day. I have written to him correcting my misunderstanding.

The noble Viscount is completely right that one has to build a constituency for these agreements if they are to have the impact that we all desire. For that reason, we conducted a very extensive call for input between September and November last year on it, and published it along with our response in negotiation objectives. We held round tables across the country, and we have also set up various trade advisory groups with expertise drawn from a wide cross-section of the UK to advise us on the negotiations as they persist. The noble Viscount will understand that the lessons and advancements that you gain in one free trade agreement—subject, of course, to the trammels of negotiation—often get rolled forward into future free trade agreements. We believe that we are on the cutting edge of free trade agreements, and we are looking forward to those cutting edges appearing in the new free trade agreements that we intend to negotiate and ratify going forward.