Emily Thornberry
MP for Islington South and Finsbury · Labour · United Kingdom
“The Israeli Minister Ben Gvir has said, “It is time for the state of Israel to publicly recognise that the Falkland Islands are Argentine territory under occupation”, and that we, the British, are not merely occupying the territory but, in carrying out oil drilling there, are stealing money from the Argentine people.”
“At last! I am so very happy to see a British Government—a Labour British Government—finally doing the right thing and taking a strong stance against the illegal building of settlements in the occupied territories of Palestine, no longer a bystander wringing their hands.”
“I congratulate the Foreign Secretary on taking such a brave stance, and on his powerful and moving statement. I am so proud that this has finally happened; but could Ministers and officials meet my Committee and me, and some of our officials, to discuss whether we can implement these sanctions as quickly as possible?”
“However, at the last local elections, the Greens registered candidates with the Electoral Commission as “first choice candidate” or “lead candidate”, so that, in an election with three votes, there was an instruction on the ballot paper as to who someone should vote for. That is an abuse, and it should be stopped.”
“No, I have only got two minutes. Come on! People should just pay their taxes and get involved. New clause 86 proposes that a donor would have to be a total citizen. It is not enough to come back to Britain and go, “Oh well, I’m here now.”
“I recommend the report to Members, if they are in any doubt about the ways in which malign actors, either state or non-state, are trying to influence and undermine democracies across Europe, but if we think that we are free of that because we are on the other side of the channel, we have got another think coming.”
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“I therefore greatly welcome the Secretary of State’s decision to grant this debate and vote in Government time, and hope that she will amend the Trade Bill, because she will now have realised that this simply will not do; the right to debate and approve future trade agreements should be a matter of law, not just a matter of discretion. That brings me to the main theme of my remarks: the importance of the Japan agreement as a precedent for other trade deals to come, in terms of both substance and the way in which they are presented to the world. Let me start with some of the positives. I welcome the Secretary of State’s dedicated chapter on the role of women in our economy. That is definitely an important precedent.”
“I will rattle through a bit of my speech, because I have your beady eyes on me Madam Deputy Speaker. Once I know I am definitely halfway, I will take interventions. The same situation with Opposition day debates is set to be true of the continuity agreements recently reached with Ukraine, the Ivory Coast, Kenya and Canada, and, of course, the 11 other continuity agreements that the Government still need to secure in the next five weeks—or 14, if we are still counting Algeria, Bosnia and Serbia. In other words, the process for parliamentary scrutiny and approval that the Government are relying on for our future deals as an independent trading nation is failing repeatedly at the very first hurdle, through the denial of Opposition day debates.”
“So there is a cake of a certain size—the tariff quota—and the EU and Britain will have access to that cake. Who gets what bit first? What happens if the EU gets the cake first—what does Britain do then? Is it first come, first served? Or is the cake already cut up in pieces? I wonder whether the right hon. Lady could help us with that.”
“Given the time, I will with your leave, Madam Deputy Speaker, take some other interventions at this moment, as I am halfway through my speech.”
“I agree with my hon. Friend. I have to say that trade deals generally are better when we consult properly and extensively and put trust in Parliament, which unfortunately the Conservative party does not seem to have at this time.”
“More importantly, I hope that a renewed focus on substance over presentation and the chastening loss of our trade deals with Algeria, Bosnia and Serbia will encourage her to get her head down over the next five weeks and do the hard, unglamorous work of sorting out the other 11 continuity agreements worth £55 billion in trade with Mexico, Singapore, Ghana and others before the clock runs out and before any more of the free trade agreements we already have are carelessly and needlessly thrown away.”
“Indeed, we risk misleading the British people and undermining their confidence in the importance of trade if we claim benefits from the agreements we negotiate that are simply not borne out by the facts. I welcome the trade agreement with Japan—all of us on the Opposition Benches do—but the Secretary of State has done herself no favours and done our country no service in the way in which she has presented this agreement and oversold its benefits. I hope she will learn the right lessons from this when it comes to negotiating our new trade deals with the US, Australia, New Zealand, the rest of the CPTPP and the Mercosur countries in the coming years.”
“My suggestion to the Secretary of State is that, until she can provide her own assessment of the difference between the two deals, she should stop making exaggerated claims about the “additional economic benefits” of her deal, because quite frankly, she does not have the figures to back them up. That is why this issue really matters, and that is why it is important that we get this precedent right before the Secretary of State goes off to negotiate any more trade deals on our country’s behalf. It does not matter whether it is an issue as small as soy sauce imports from Japan or as big as car exports to Europe. We gain nothing in international credibility if we overstate what our trade deals have achieved.”
“I have no doubt that the Secretary of State will tell me that the 2018 forecasts were inaccurate, the methodology was flawed and the Minister for Trade Policy was having a bad hair day, although he did put his name on it. All those things may be true, but here is the problem: unless and until she can produce an assessment of how the UK-Japan deal compares with the EU-Japan deal in terms of the forecast for UK exports and growth, that is all we have to go on. The two assessments produced by her Department in 2018 and 2020 show that her historic, groundbreaking, British-shaped deal has left our country worse off than if we had simply rolled over the provisions in the EU-Japan agreement.”
“Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) wants to write this down, because it might be worth coming back to—that in the final assessment produced last month by the Department of the long-term impact of the UK-Japan deal, the forecast increase in UK exports to Japan was £2.6 billion, and the forecast increase in UK GDP was £1.5 billion. Let us compare those figures with the Department’s assessment of the long-term impact of the EU-Japan deal. Under that assessment, the forecast increase in UK exports to Japan was not £2.6 billion but £4.3 billion, and the forecast increase in UK GDP was not £1.5 billion but £2.6 billion. I do not know about you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but that does not sound like further and faster, above and beyond, additional or higher to me. It sounds like smaller, slower, lower and lamer.”
“On page 2, after the Minister’s signature, it says in black and white: “The analysis assumes that the UK continues to trade…after EU exit…with Japan on an equivalent preferential basis to the EPA.” In other words, this is what we have been asking for and what the Secretary of State has repeatedly refused to provide—an analysis by her Department, authorised by her closest ministerial colleague, of what would happen if we had just stuck to the terms of the EU-Japan deal. I remind colleagues—I wonder whether my hon.”
“I went back to the Department’s original impact assessment, published in May 2018, of the effects of the EU-Japan deal. It is a detailed 51-page document, signed and authorised on the front cover by the Minister for Trade Policy, the right hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands). I have to say that I do not think it is the right hon. Gentleman’s best piece of work—the assumptions and baselines are pretty sketchy, and my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) was pretty scathing about it during the debate in 2018—but, nevertheless, it is what we have to go on; we do not have anything else.”
“I fail to see why the Secretary of State gets so indignant about this question; after all, she is the one who has repeatedly claimed over the past 75 days that the deal she has negotiated with Japan goes “beyond and above” the EU-Japan deal, goes “further and faster” than the EU-Japan deal and delivers “additional economic benefits” in comparison with the EU-Japan deal. Indeed, when I pressed her last week simply to confirm that the forecast for exports and growth was higher under her deal than under the EU-Japan deal, the Secretary of State told the House, “Yes, it is higher”, so why has she continually refused to quantify that difference? Why will she not provide the figures, in pounds and pence, to back her claims? All is not lost, though: we might be able to make some progress on this point today.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman; I am coming to that. When it comes to the exaggeration of benefits and the misrepresentation of the Japanese trade deal, one crucial issue is left unresolved, and it is a vital precedent to get right. By my count, I have now asked the Secretary of State a very simple question three times on the Floor of the House, twice in letters and once in a written parliamentary question and—she knows what is coming— I ask it again now: in pounds and pence, what is the forecast increase in UK exports and growth resulting from the UK-Japan deal compared with the EU-Japan deal that it replaces?”
“The Secretary of State has repeatedly claimed that the deal that she signed with Japan goes far beyond the original EU-Japan deal, so I return to the question that I asked her two months ago: will she tell us, in billions of pounds and percentages of growth, what the forecast benefits are for UK exports in GDP from her deal, compared with the forecast benefits of retaining the existing EU-Japan deal?”
“What is going on? The Secretary of State claims that the UK-Japan deal goes far beyond the EU-Japan deal but will not quantify the difference. Why not? If she will not publish the exact figures at this point, will she at least do one basic thing and simply state on the parliamentary record whether the growth in our exports and GDP is forecast to be higher as a result of the UK-Japan deal than it was under the EU-Japan deal?”
“President-elect Biden has spoken powerfully about the need to end support for the war in Yemen and to stop selling arms that Saudi Arabia uses, in his words, for “murdering children”. Will the Secretary of State revisit her policy on arms sales in the light of the new President’s statement, or will she choose to remain in lockstep with the blood prince bin Salman instead?”
“(Urgent Question ): To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade to make a statement on the proposed parliamentary scrutiny of future Continuity Trade Agreements.”
“It is sheer bumbling incompetence, and instead of taking responsibility today, the Secretary of State has sent her Minister in her stead —a fitting symbol of a total failure to grasp this issue during her 16 months in office. It therefore falls to the Minister of State to answer my three final questions. First, what new steps is his Department taking to get these 15 agreements over the line before Christmas? Secondly, when will UK businesses be told if any of those agreements, including with Mexico, are definitely not going to be reached? Thirdly, how can Ministers continue to defend the adequacy of the rules for parliamentary scrutiny of trade deals after the absolute mockery that they have made of them today?”
“Why have we heard Governments such as Montenegro and Cameroon saying that formal talks were held in September 2019, but then nothing for a full year afterwards? Why, in just the past week, have we heard the Prime Minister of Canada say that Britain has lacked the “bandwidth” to do a deal and the Government of Ghana express dismay that their UK counterparts would turn up late and badly briefed to meetings and then leave early with nothing resolved? Those are all the hallmarks of Ministers who are simply not doing their job. How else do we explain why the agreement reached two weeks ago with Kenya has still not been laid before Parliament and cannot now receive the full 21 days of scrutiny?”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question on an issue that should never have become urgent. The Government have literally had years to protect our free trade with countries such as Canada, Singapore and Mexico, but with just six weeks to go until the end of the transition period, 15 of those continuity agreements have still not been secured, leaving £80 billion of UK trade at risk—two and a half times our trade with Japan. Those 15 agreements have been left so late that the Government will now have to ride roughshod over the rules of parliamentary scrutiny to implement them in time. Why do we find ourselves in this sorry mess? Why were 20 agreements signed in 2019, but only four so far in 2020?”
“We have spent countless hours in this House and in the other place debating the impact of imports on food standards—a debate that has captured the attention of millions of people across the country—but I would like to boil it down to asking the Secretary of State one simple question today. If it is her argument that we do not need Labour’s amendments because bans on the relevant imports are already enshrined in law, can she please tell us which law prevents the importing of pork that has been produced on American farms that continue to use sow stalls?”
“I listened very carefully to that response, but I do not really think that it was an answer further than rhetoric. The point is that there is no import ban against pork produced on farms using sow stalls because, as the Secretary of State says, it is an issue of animal welfare, not of food safety. That means that, if the Government drop tariffs on US pork, British pork farmers will be undercut by cheap imports from American agricultural companies using practices that have been banned in our country for the past 21 years. Will she please listen to reason and write into law the protection of all UK farming standards against imports that do not meet them?”
“Is it by penalising the Biya Government for their continued human rights abuses or, preferably, to persuade them to stop those abuses in future?”
“I am sure that the whole House has been encouraged by the Minister’s warm words on human rights, but let us test them with a specific example. I understand from the high commissioner of Cameroon that virtual negotiations on UK’s roll-over agreement are taking place as we speak, the first such negotiations in more than a year. Perhaps the Minister will update us on those talks and on any side discussions on the attendee development. For the purposes of this question, can he tell us whether his intention going into those negotiations is to assert a full essential elements human rights clause into the roll-over agreement with Cameroon rather than the current obsolete cross-reference to Cotonou? If so, how does he plan to enforce that clause effectively?”
“It surely cannot be the case that this House will have less of a right to vote on a self-proclaimed historic deal agreed by the Secretary of State than will be enjoyed by our counterparts in Japan. May I ask her today to guarantee a vote, and to make it a precedent that will apply to all the other historic agreements she mentioned in her statement and that we hope are still to come?”
“That is why Nissan and every other Japanese company operating in Britain have told us that the deal that will determine the future of the investment and the jobs that they bring to our communities is not the one that we signed with Japan, but the one we sign with Europe. I am glad that the Secretary of State has committed to a further debate on the agreement, given that there are many more questions to ask, but frankly there is no point in having that debate if Parliament does not have the right to vote. Will the Secretary of State guarantee today that once the treaty text and all the impact assessments have been published for proper scrutiny, she will bring the agreement back for a debate and vote, in Government time, just as will be done in the Japanese Parliament?”
“On the subject of Brexit, will the Secretary of State simply agree with me that, welcome and necessary as this deal with Japan is, it is nothing like as important in terms of our global trade as reaching a deal to maintain free trade with the European Union? Our trade with Japan is worth 2.2% of our current global trade. That does not come anywhere near the 47% of trade that we have with Europe under the Government’s best-case scenario. The deal they signed on Friday will increase our trade with Japan by a little less than half in 15 years’ time. That is nothing compared with what we will lose in just four months if we do not get the deal with Europe that this Government have promised.”
“Given that there has been lots of discussion about Stilton, can the Secretary of State tell us exactly how the treatment of Stilton differs under the deal that she has agreed from its existing treatment under the EU-Japan deal? Given the current debate on state aid, can she confirm that the provisions on Government subsidies that she has agreed with Japan are more restrictive than the provisions in the EU-Canada deal, which No. 10 has said is the maximum it is prepared to accept in any UK trade deal with Brussels? On a similar subject, what provisions, if any, are included in the UK-Japan agreement relating to public procurement, and are they also consistent with the Government’s current negotiating position on an EU trade deal?”
“Nevertheless, I hope that the Secretary of State can answer some initial questions today. First and foremost, will the Secretary of State tell us, in billions of pounds and percentages of growth, what benefits this agreement will produce for UK trade and GDP over and above the forecast benefits of simply rolling over the existing EU-Japan deal? I was glad to hear her refer to consultation with the farming sector. Can she tell us what benefits the sector will derive from this deal if the EU reaches its tariff rate quota limit for agricultural products, and how that will compare with the benefits that the sector was forecast to derive from the EU-Japan deal? Will she also tell us what the impact of Friday’s agreement will be on the UK aerospace sector relative to the impact of the EU-Japan deal? Let me turn to three specific issues.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement and congratulate her on reaching this agreement. It is a much-needed relief for all those UK companies that would have seen their trade with Japan revert to World Trade Organisation terms if the agreement had not been reached by the end of the year. It is also a welcome benefit at a time of great economic uncertainty for the UK’s digital and tech sectors, and for other key exporters, which will benefit from greater access, faster tariff reductions or stronger geographical indication protections under this agreement than they enjoyed under the previous EU-Japan agreement. In the absence of a treaty text and a full updated impact assessment, there is much about the UK-Japan agreement that we still do not know and will not know until those documents are published.”
“I am sorry not to be able to be in the Chamber in person. I am pleased to hear that the Secretary of State is listening to British business, and I hope that she will listen to the millions of British workers and consumers who have an equal right to be heard when it comes to trade. With that in mind, may I ask her a simple, factual question: of the 162 individuals that she announced last week will be members of her new trade advisory groups, will she tell us how many of them represent trade unions, consumer groups or non-governmental organisations?”
“The question really is: why do those groups really not merit being part of the trade advisory group, because of the 162 advisers that the Secretary of State has appointed, there is not a single person from a union, a consumer group or an NGO. Perhaps more important than anything else is that also excluded from the new advisory groups is the CBI, which previously sat on a group advising Ministers on continuity of trade for UK firms post Brexit—a group that has met nine times in the past year alone. Will the Secretary of State tell us why the CBI has been totally excluded, and why has the advisory group on continuity after Brexit now been totally disbanded?”
“To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade if she will make a statement on her decision to resume the sale of arms to the Saudi-led coalition for use in the war in Yemen.”
“678, c. 339WS.] Does the Minister not agree that that sounds like the very definition of the word “indiscriminate”? Fifthly, the Government have concluded that Saudi Arabia has both the intent and capacity to comply with international law, but if that is the case, will the Minister explain the cause of the occasions on which it has failed to do that? Finally, it would help all of us to understand the Government’s decision if they would agree to publish the full assessment that underpinned it, including the analysis of each so-called isolated incident. If the Minister believes this decision is not just moral and lawful but correct, then surely he has nothing to fear from publishing that assessment and letting us all decide for ourselves.”
“Can the Minister tell us how many such incidents were identified, so that we can understand how they define the word “isolated”? Thirdly, the Government say they have found no patterns of civilian infrastructure being targeted. Can the Minister therefore explain why, for 17 months at the start of the war, Saudi planes systematically destroyed Yemen’s means of food production, bombing farmland, markets, milk plants and fishing boats? If that is not a pattern, what is? Fourthly, as well as deliberate targeting, the Minister will know that the indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas is in itself a war crime, but the Government say the Saudis could not have meant to break international law because their violations “occurred at different times, in different circumstances and for different reasons.” —[ Official Report , 7 July 2020; Vol.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, although I am sorry the Secretary of State cannot be dragged here to explain her own decisions. There is certainly much explaining to do. In my limited time, I have five questions for the Minister and one specific request. First, we welcome the Secretary of State’s assessment of possible violations of international law in Yemen, but can the Minister explain why his brother Ministers have been telling the House for the last five years that such an assessment was impossible for Britain to make, and that it could be made only by Saudi Arabia itself? Were those Ministers simply wrong? Secondly, the Secretary of State has concluded that where international law was broken in Yemen these were “isolated incidents”.”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. As you know, there was a written ministerial statement today in which the Secretary of State for International Trade announced that we were to begin selling arms once more to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen. Of course, that flies in the face of the Court of Appeal decision last year. The Government claim that they have carried out a complete review, and that all the alleged instances of war crimes are simply isolated incidents. How can a statement of such extraordinary magnitude be made by way of a written statement? I know that tomorrow is a busy day, but can we be assured that the Secretary of State has asked to come before the House, either tomorrow or on Thursday, to be able to answer questions, because there is huge interest in this matter in the House?”
“Last year, Brazil lost an area of rainforest the size of Yorkshire, and the new land reforms proposed by the Bolsonaro Administration will make the scale of deforestation and commercial exploitation in the Amazon even worse. In the light of that, can the Minister tell us what environmental conditions are attached to his Department’s £20 million trade facilitation programme with Brazil? Will he promise to suspend that programme if the Bolsonaro Administration persist with their proposed land reform laws?”
“On Monday in Yemen, 13 civilians travelling by road, including four children, were killed in an alleged Saudi airstrike—the latest innocent victims of this barbaric war. A year ago this week, the Court of Appeal ruled that it is unlawful for the Government to license any more exports of arms to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen, and ordered the Government to review all extant licences in the light of that judgment. A full year later, can the Secretary of State tell us whether that review of extant licences is complete and, if not, why not?”
“I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, but the fact is that, a year on from the Court of Appeal ruling, British firms are still exporting arms for use in Yemen, and that is unacceptable. On a related issue, the Government refuse point black to tell us whether British-made tear gas and other riot equipment have been used in the United States over the past month. I ask the Secretary of State a very simple but important question that goes alongside that: does she condemn the tear gassing and beating of unarmed, peaceful protesters and journalists, and will she make it clear that riot equipment should never be used in that way?”
“I am all for expanding the 0.3% of global trade that we share with Malaysia and Brunei, which is all the statement ultimately amounts to, but as the 47% of our trade that depends on Europe is hanging in the balance that is where the Government’s priorities should lie.”
“I raise those questions not from confirmed opposition to CPTPP but simply because we need to know whether the risks are worth taking if the only distinct benefit is the prospect of free trade with Malaysia and Brunei. That debate has not yet been won, and I urge the Secretary of State to reopen it for consultation with industry, unions and other stakeholders who did not have the time to study the proposals properly during the busy Brexit negotiations in autumn 2018. In closing, we cannot divorce this debate from that around the still busy Brexit negotiations. The businesses I speak to around the country simply cannot understand why the Government are spending so much time and effort trying to negotiate international trade deals of relatively low value when they have yet to secure our continued trade with Europe.”
“If other CPTPP members are not compliant with the general data protection regulation, how will that affect the ability of UK service companies to access EU citizens’ data? Thirdly, will CPTPP membership oblige us to accept a “list it or lose it” approach to private competition in the public sector? If so, can the Government guarantee a blanket exception for our NHS and other essential public services? Fourthly, will we be obliged to accept the regulatory standards on animal welfare and food production established under CPTPP and, if so, are they compatible with other existing standards? Finally, will the Government negotiate the terms of our CPTPP membership to benefit key British trade sectors, or will we have to accept the existing terms of an agreement shaped in the interests of others?”
“I ask the Secretary of State: what are the benefits of joining CPTPP for UK trade, growth and jobs, over and above the benefits that she has already forecast from trade deals with Japan, Australia and the seven other CPTPP countries with whom bilateral negotiations are already complete or still in train? Could she then tell us how these potential benefits stack up against some of the potential risks of CPTPP membership? First, will the UK be subject to the provisions in CPTPP for investor state dispute settlement, with all the risks that that poses to our ability to protect public services, consumers and the environment from corporate profiteers? Secondly, will membership of CPTPP demand the sharing of our citizens’ data, including health records? If so, how will that data be protected?”
“Then, just this morning, the Secretary of State formally launched free trade negotiations with another two CPTPP members, Australia and New Zealand. Just to be clear, according to the Secretary of State’s plans, by the time we join CPTPP, we should already have bilateral free trade deals in place with nine of its 11 members, accounting for 95% of the UK’s current trade with the CPTPP area. In fact, the only new free trade agreements that we stand to gain from membership of CPTPP are with the kingdoms of Malaysia and Brunei, which, between them, accounted for just 0.37% of the UK’s total world trade last year.”
“As the Secretary of State said, CPTPP currently comprises 11 members, accounting for 13% of global GDP, making it the third-largest free trade area in the world. So in theory, the UK becoming a member sounds like it deserves the fanfare that the Secretary of State has given it today. However, let us now look at those 11 countries. With seven of them, we already have free trade agreements, courtesy of our membership of the EU—that is Japan, Canada, Singapore, Mexico, Chile, Peru and Vietnam. With two of those—Chile and Peru—roll-over deals are in place to continue free trade beyond December. With the other five, bilateral negotiations are still ongoing to get roll-over deals agreed. That is seven out of the 11 taken care of.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement and for always keeping the House up to date on the progress of her trade negotiations. On my count, in those six weeks, the Secretary of State has formally launched new trade negotiations with four different countries—the US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand—on top of the 16 negotiations that she is already leading to roll over our EU third country agreements, all of which, according to her own timetable, she wants signed and sealed within the next six months. In addition, we now have today’s statement committing the Government to begin negotiations on the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, CPTPP—I am going to pronounce it “C-tip” for short.”
“Instead of a bold, strategic vision for the future of our trade policy, we have a stopgap piece of legislation that even Ministers are trying to talk down. Instead of issues such as climate change and human rights being put at the heart of our trade policy, they have been ignored or consciously dropped. Instead of opening our trade policy to the expertise of others, the Government are denying them even a seat at the table. And instead of restoring Parliament’s sovereignty over trade policy, this Bill leaves MPs even more powerless than before. That is why I urge colleagues on both sides of the House to support the Opposition’s amendment. After five decades, let us spend the time and effort we need to get this historic Bill right.”
“We have an EU agreement with Japan, which both the Secretary of State and her Japanese counterpart have said our bilateral deal should go beyond, and that will doubtless be true of the Canada deal as well. In short, we will end up with several major new trade deals all significantly different from their EU equivalents, but all subject to the same minimal amount of parliamentary scrutiny and approval, as proposed in the Trade Bill. That is not a restoration of parliamentary sovereignty. That is not anywhere near the gold standard of parliamentary consultation, scrutiny and approval of trade deals that we see in Australia or the United States. That is not therefore what I would call taking back control. In conclusion, I believe that this Trade Bill offers a historic opportunity, but that opportunity has so far been missed.”