Gareth Thomas
MP for Harrow West · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“Local councils such as Harrow need to invest more in youth facilities that divert young people away from crime. Some of the CCTV projects in my constituency that Harrow council has turned down—in Wealdstone, south Harrow and central Harrow—should get funding.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) on securing the debate and on the way in which he approached the subject. I join him and my hon.”
“I also want to suggest that the Metropolitan police does not get recognition across the whole of the UK for its hugely important work in tackling national and international crime, and that perhaps more recognition of that is required in the funding formula.”
“In particular, in Harrow, we recently saw enforcement teams contracted out to an organisation called Kingdom. The responsibility for that contract was with Harrow council. There was widespread criticism of the way some of the staff employed by Kingdom tried to levy fines on a number of young people in south Harrow, in my constituency.”
“One way we can further support the Metropolitan police is by allowing it to keep more of the proceeds from successful operations, such as recovering stolen funds hidden in bitcoin assets. I congratulate my hon.”
“Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has done a huge amount to try to redirect funding from other parts of his budget to minimise the impact of that cut.”
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“It should not be up to the banks and those offering mortgages to decide whether they want to do the right thing; they should be forced to comply and to help, and we must certainly end no-fault evictions straight away. The British people deserve better than they are getting from the Conservative party. Homeowners in Harrow should not be suffering the ever-increasing burden of higher mortgage costs. Ministers could do more to help. They should not be leaving 1 million people unprotected; they should back Labour’s plan today and then they should call a general election.”
“There are of course global factors in play and it is also true that the Bank of England has questions to answer, but the disastrous mini-Budget last year and 13 years of economic failure have left our economy far weaker than it should have been, and the mortgage crisis is clearly worse in the UK than in other European countries. As my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer said, mortgage rates in Germany, France, Ireland and the Netherlands are typically lower than here. I strongly support the plans set out by my right hon. Friend. She has forced the Chancellor to take some action, but it does not go far enough to help those renting and those facing fast-rising mortgage costs. Mandatory action is required to support mortgage holders.”
“I am fortunate in Harrow to have a community that is determined to do what it can to help those in real need. Harrow food bank, London’s community kitchen, My Yard Harrow and Soul Kitchen Harrow provide an impressive and dedicated offer to families in dire need. They should not have to do that, but energy bills and food prices are already high, and if mortgage costs continue to feed through into rent increases, the pressure on lower-income families will be even more profound and disturbing. Conservative Members like to claim that what is happening here is part of a global crisis or is just down to the Bank of England’s incompetence.”
“In short, close to 18,000 households in the London Borough of Harrow face an average increase in mortgage payments of between £450 and £580 a month. Those figures are devastating for family finances. Ever more mortgage deals have been withdrawn by the banks. Moneyfacts data suggests that the typical rate on a two-year fixed rate loan have increased to almost 6%, double the rate of a year ago, and the independent Resolution Foundation estimates that by 2026 some 6.5 million households across the country will have been affected by the post mini-Budget rise in mortgage rates. It is not just homeowners who are going to be hardest hit: charities and property experts are understandably warning that the rapid rise in borrowing costs is not just having an impact on owner-occupiers but is contributing to record rent increases.”
“Families move out to Harrow because family homes have traditionally been more affordable than in inner London, and we have excellent schools and very good transport links. The Tory party’s mortgage bombshell threatens the dreams of too many Harrow families—dreams of owning and investing in their own homes, of being able to always afford the rent for the home they live in, of being able to provide a stable and secure place to bring up their children and to look after older family members and still to be able to afford a good quality of life with good holidays and trips out. Those ambitions are much tougher now for even more families in my constituency because of the Conservative mortgage bombshell.”
“The rise in interest rates last week to a 15-year high will be profoundly worrying for many of my constituents, particularly the many homeowners with a mortgage, but also those privately renting who are worried that their landlord might now put up their rents at a time when it is very difficult to find a genuinely affordable home to rent in my constituency. It is estimated that there are 8,900 households in my constituency facing an average increase in their annual mortgage payments of £5,400. In the neighbouring Conservative-held seats of Harrow East some 7,800 households face an estimated annual mortgage payment increase of £6,200 and in Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner 9,500 households face an average annual increase in mortgage payments of some £7,000. Harrow has one of the highest rates of home ownership and owner occupation in London.”
“Can the Minister give a simple answer to a simple question? How many school buildings do the Government consider to be posing a risk to the life and safety of children in my constituency and across the country?”
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady for initiating the debate. She may be aware that the World Wildlife Fund argues that some 8 million tonnes of plastic get dumped every year. While she rightly describes the progress made in this country in particular—but also in others—does she share my view that for the future, we actually need to see discussion of how we can toughen up product standards to increase the amount of plastic that can be recycled, and give consumers more information about which plastics used in products can be recycled and which cannot?”
“While Labour Members recognise the diplomatic and security benefits of closer ties with the Indo-Pacific, Ministers’ negotiating skills are clearly not improved if Britain’s joining the CPTPP will lift economic growth here by only 0.08%. Will the Secretary of State tell the House why, in the accession talks, she was not able to resist giving some overseas corporate giants the right to access secret courts that could override the will of the British people, bypass Parliament and cost British taxpayers significant sums of money?”
“Tamil Remembrance Day is marked every year on this day, to remember the thousands of predominantly Tamil victims of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka. Fourteen years on from the end of the conflict, there is still no international mechanism for holding the perpetrators of war crimes on the island of Sri Lanka, such as extrajudicial killings, torture and rape, to account. Will the Leader of the House be good enough to ask the Foreign Secretary why Britain still will not use Magnitsky sanctions against some of the worst perpetrators, or even consider a referral to the International Criminal Court?”
“I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for initiating the debate and for allowing me to intervene. I wonder if her interest in nature extends to water and blue spaces. On the rare occasions when parliamentary duties and childcare allow, I seek joy from canoeing, but there is an unfettered right of access to only 7% of appropriate inland waterways in the UK. Voluntary access arrangements are clearly not working in any significant way. Does she agree that, at a minimum, the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 needs to be extended to cover water as well as land?”
“One measure that would improve the regulatory framework for mutuals in the financial services sector, such as Royal London or Liverpool Victoria, would be the introduction of permanent mutual shares. Given that such a reform would allow a new safe route to access the capital that such financial mutuals need to expand—and without having to demutualise—will the Minister explain why the Treasury is still dragging its feet on the introduction of such a significant reform?”
“We all want the Ukrainian counter-offensive to be successful. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) was right to challenge the Government on whether they are adhering to their commitments. On the point about long-range missiles, which my right hon. Friend and others have pressed the Minister on, can he tell us whether the MOD is now walking back from the Prime Minister’s commitment to offer further long-range missiles? If it is, when will we hear more detail and clarity on how many more long-range missiles, and what sort, will be issued to Ukrainian forces?”
“Monday’s bank holiday will be warmly appreciated by hard-working families in Harrow—and, no doubt, in the rest of the United Kingdom—but 1 May will also be celebrated by many British Gujaratis as the day on which the state of Gujarat came into being in modern India. There are more than 800,000 British Gujaratis in all walks of life and in all parts of the UK. Will the Leader of the House take this opportunity, ahead of Gujarat day, to welcome the contribution that they make to our country?”
“I am very much an optimist about our country—Britain will do better—but I gently suggest to the House that it will take a Labour Government to get Britain back on the road to the brighter and better future that the British people most definitely deserve.”
“The continent still faces huge challenges, notably on the climate crisis, poverty and conflict, but the establishment of the African continental free trade area is an indicator of increasing African self-confidence, and new partnerships to support mutual growth and development are surely in Britain’s long-term interest. The Conservatives’ record on trade is one of failure and broken promises, a point my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West made explicitly in his excellent opening contribution. In 2012 the Conservative party pledged to reach £1 trillion of exports by 2020. Six Chancellors and four Prime Ministers later, the OBR is predicting that the target will be hit 15 years late.”
“Member for North East Bedfordshire brought to the attention of the House—the lack of trade and geopolitical attention that Ministers are giving to that remarkable continent is striking. The cuts in development assistance, in particular cutting back on key programmes of trade assistance such as the TradeMark Africa programme, have created the sense that Britain is less interested than it once was in Africa’s future. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) reminds me, the International Monetary Fund says that in just eight years’ time, fully half of all the young people entering the labour market globally will be in Africa.”
“Why, for example, is there not a greater effort to engage with Gujarat, where the fastest growth is taking place? We have a large Gujarati diaspora in the UK, with many highly successful businesses that already have links to Gujarat, yet we appear to be doing very little to capitalise on that knowledge and expertise. Other countries, notably France, have significantly stepped up their diplomatic and trade efforts with India in recent years. I have to say that there has been a notable failure of late by Ministers to back up negotiations to secure trade deals with the resources to help businesses to take advantage of all the claimed benefits of those deals. Lastly, on Africa—a point that the hon.”
“The Minister will know only too well that, while I am sure membership of the CTPPP will bring benefits in geopolitical terms, it is not clear that the trade benefits will be huge. The Government’s own predictions suggest it will add just 0.08% to our GDP, so it will not make up for the failure to deliver a trade deal with Europe or all the extra red tape, customs deals and higher costs that the poorly negotiated deal with the EU has delivered. It is striking, too, that we have still not seen a trade deal signed with India, despite the promises that it would be done by Diwali last year. The concern on India is that other countries are racing ahead to get their business interests in front of Indian Ministers. With India set to be the world’s third largest economy by 2030, we need to step up significantly our trade efforts there.”
“The failure to negotiate a trade deal with the US, as Conservative Members promised in their 2019 manifesto would be struck, is being compounded by the failure to grasp the scale of the potential risk to British business from the US Inflation Reduction Act, while the EU’s own response, published in February, could further divert green investment from the UK unless Ministers act. I hope we will hear from the Minister how her Department is responding to those threats. I welcome the apparent progress made on the Indo-Pacific tilt and the Government’s decision to accede to the CPTPP, albeit we will need to examine the agreement in considerable detail. The Secretary of State’s comments on Monday suggest that she may well have made very significant concessions to secure that accession agreement.”
“A veterinary agreement with the European Union would be a good starting point, helping to reduce the considerable red tape and trade barriers that many of our agri-exporters now face. More direct Government assistance to support different business groups negotiate mutual recognition agreements of professional qualifications would be sensible, too. We also need to find new, flexible labour mobility arrangements for those making short-term work trips and for musicians and artists seeking short-term visas to tour within the EU. We also need to resolve the position on Britain’s data adequacy status, so that there is no threat to UK digital services companies’ ability to compete in the EU.”
“Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) alluded to in one of his early interventions, the rules of origin, which are expected to get tighter at the start of next year, pose real problems for the automotive industry. It would be good to hear from the Minister on how she and her colleagues intend to address those points. Although Ministers may like to ignore these difficulties in general, Europe remains our biggest export market. Therefore, while progress on the Windsor framework is welcome, if we are to make Brexit work better, Ministers need a clear plan to make trading with the European Union less cumbersome and difficult, in particular for small and medium-sized businesses.”
“Friend the Member for Bristol North West made the point that Europe remains our biggest, nearest market. It is home to crucial allies, and making Brexit work better ought to be a fundamental strategic priority for both trade and geopolitical reasons in the coming months. It is clear that the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which the first of last year’s Prime Ministers negotiated with the European Union, is not working, as we were once promised that it would. Three quarters of firms that trade with Europe and that are members of the British Chambers of Commerce say that the Government’s trade deal is not helping them increase sales or grow their businesses. The Institute of Directors has reported similar problems, too. As my hon.”
“Furthermore, the Indo-Pacific tilt, at least in trade terms, does not look like being the great solution to our economic woes that various Conservative Prime Ministers once promised. Progress on a trade deal with India seems to have been considerably hampered by tensions between the Home Office and the Department for Business and Trade, and Africa has largely been ignored. The invasion of Ukraine has had considerable trade and geopolitical consequences. It is a reminder of the importance of our allies in eastern Europe; of working through NATO; of the continuing significance of global supply chains; and of maintaining close relationships with both America and the European Union, even while we look for other trade opportunities, too. My hon.”
“That underlines the fact that there is still no White Paper on trade; no clear plan to boost green trade; no industrial strategy to help address supply chain issues; and certainly no consultation on what Britain’s strategic trade goals should be, or what funding and other resources should be allocated to support a UK-wide trade strategy that delivers for all the nations and regions of the UK. That was a point that the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) also made. Our trade relationship with our nearest neighbours remains in serious need of improvement. It is clear that the much-promised trade deal with the United States will not happen while the current crop of Ministers are in post.”
“The prediction by the Office for Budget Responsibility that exports will plummet this year, will drop again next year, and will manage only anaemic growth in the next three years underscores the importance of this debate and the 13 years of economic failure that have seen trade targets repeatedly missed, rampant inflation, taxes through the roof and huge numbers of businesses in real difficulty. The OECD expects the UK to suffer the worst performance on economic growth this year of any G7 country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West alluded to in his opening remarks, today’s global figures from the UN specialist trade body revealed that Britain has dropped out of the world’s top five for exports of goods and services.”
“Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) in the Chamber. The whole House will have cherished his contribution as there was no other Conservative Member available. We were 30 minutes into his speech when he made a particularly interesting point on the trade and geopolitical significance of Africa, which I want to return to, if I can, later in my speech. The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) underlined the fundamental importance of considering the climate emergency for our trade and geopolitical agenda, and she was absolutely right to do so.”
“I join the House in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), the Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, on securing this debate. I am sure that the whole House would agree that he chairs the Select Committee with considerable distinction. The way that he approached this debate and his thoughtful and provocative speech—provocative in the best sense—are testament to him and to his expertise in this area. We had a very interesting contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams). My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) spoke in particular about the significance of trade with Mexico and Latin America—a matter that no one else had focused on until that point. We were lucky to have the hon.”
“Will my hon. Friend also take this opportunity to join me in commending the huge effort by Harrow Litter Pickers, a group set up and co-ordinated by the remarkable Casey Dalton, which last year collected more than 11,500 bags of litter in the London Borough of Harrow? Does he agree that the Minister should be clear that local authorities should work with litter-picking groups to support their efforts and that some sort of nationally devised standard to help quantify those relationships might be helpful in holding local councils accountable for the support they give or, sadly, potentially do not give litter-picking groups?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for much of what she has said. I am sure that she will acknowledge what Harrow Litter Pickers has found, which is that on occasion, there are basically organised fly-tippers going around and causing problems for local councils, and litter pickers have to help the councils respond to those problems. To what extent is the Department willing to support intelligence-gathering efforts about those rogue fly-tippers, to help make councils’ enforcement a little more effective?”
“Ordered, That Gareth Thomas, Anna McMorrin, Clive Efford, Sir Mark Hendrick, Seema Malhotra, Rachael Maskell, Ms Lyn Brown, Kerry McCarthy, Ms Karen Buck, Alex Sobel, Kate Osamor and Mr Virendra Sharma present the Bill. Gareth Thomas accordingly presented the Bill. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 24 November, and to be printed (Bill 289).”
“If we want to double the size of the co-operative and mutual sector, and if we want a new wave of environmental and sustainable investment, and new projects for social value in renewables, social care or affordable housing, then permanent mutual shares, in one shape or another, are essential. Traditional routes to raising finance for businesses via equity investment or a listing on the stock exchange would all but dilute, if not completely end, consumer or workforce control of the business. This proposal is a sensible, pro-business measure, which would be good for jobs, good for the economy, and good for co-op and mutual businesses. Permanent mutual shares are available across the world. They could be more available here, too. Question put and agreed to.”
“Each investment, regardless of its size, would only offer one vote—just one vote—giving parity of power with each existing member. The investor would not be able to participate in any decision about demutualisation or the transfer of assets. Crucially, the private Member’s Bill from my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Sir Mark Hendrick) also allows co-ops and mutuals to safeguard their legacy assets, removing the incentive for demutualisation. Then there is the role played by financial regulators. The shares that are created do not have to be paid back, unlike a loan, which is a crucial balance sheet advantage. The investor gets a dividend on the investment and can trade their shares, selling them on to realise the asset and potentially to move their original investment elsewhere.”
“Nearer to home, the Dutch co-operative bank, Rabobank, one of the world’s largest banks with total assets of over $900 billion, issued €8 billion of the Dutch version of permanent mutual shares to expand and grow its banking operations. Desjardins Group, a federation of credit unions originally established in Quebec in Canada, has issued 4 billion Canadian dollars-worth of permanent mutual shares. It has used the additional capital to help small and medium-sized businesses in Quebec to grow and develop, as well as to expand its operations across the rest of Canada. Many in the House and outside will want reassurance about the safeguards around such large sums coming into a co-op or mutual business from large investors.”
“The governance of those societies has not altered. They are still member owned, answerable to their customer members here in the UK, and not, for example, to overseas private equity interests. In Australia, another version of permanent mutual shares, mutual capital instruments, came into effect in April 2019, and 400 million Australian dollars has already been raised, primarily for investment in retirement housing. Other mutuals in Australia are looking at permanent mutual shares as a way of investing in pharmacies and in insurance services for farmers and other groups where clear market gaps exist at the moment.”
“Since 2015, mutual insurers and friendly societies have been waiting for the Mutuals’ Deferred Shares Act 2015 to bring permanent mutual shares into effect for friendly societies. Ministers and officials know what needs to be done in this space, but have not yet demonstrated the political will to back these great British businesses and level up the playing field with their overseas and domestic rivals. I should point out to the House that there is no financial cost to the British taxpayer from this proposal. In the UK, since 2013, building societies have been able to issue a version of permanent shares called core capital deferred shares. Nationwide Building Society, Cambridge Building Society and Ecology Building Society have between them issued shares worth more than £1.3 billion for investment in their businesses.”
“Permanent mutual shares offer a route to raise further transformational levels of investment to build social and genuinely affordable housing. The independent think-tank Mutuo suggests that with sustained and shrewd leadership, up to £10 billion could be raised to meet Britain’s housing challenges, potentially financing between 60,000 and 90,000 new homes. Ministers—I say this gently—have known for some time that these types of shares could make an enormous difference to great British co-op and mutual businesses. Two private Members’ Bills have proposed this solution. A hundred MPs wrote to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, now the Prime Minister, in the wake of the Liverpool Victoria attempt at demutualisation, referencing the need to offer this capital-raising solution.”
“Agricultural co-operatives could benefit from this device, offering them new opportunities to invest in the best of British farming and fishing produce, as well as in our shared environmental futures. Retail co-operatives operating in highly challenging markets can be hamstrung by a lack of access to capital, needing constant investment to drive year-on-year growth. This slight change in the law could, according to Mutuo, galvanise over £1.2 billion to drive investment in businesses in every region of the UK. Housing associations face major costs over the coming years to tackle mould, improve building safety and meet environmental standards. Many housing associations have already raised significant debt capital.”
“Patient capital is that part of the private equity world, such as some pension funds, that is willing to invest for the long term and is not focused on securing ownership or part ownership of a business. The investment raised by permanent mutual shares does not have to be paid back. The value of the investment is maintained by allowing the shares to be traded. As with any shares, the investor will hope for a dividend but takes a calculated risk. There would no doubt be considerable discussions before such investment was made into a co-op or mutual business. In that, it is similar to the debt finance that businesses can now access to varying degrees. Agricultural co-operatives could also benefit. I am particularly grateful for the interest and insights of the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society.”
“Such investment has the potential to be galvanising for individual co-op businesses and mutuals. Had this option been available to Liverpool Victoria, there would have been no need to consider demutualisation and selling up to the controversial private equity giant Bain Capital. The challenges facing John Lewis only underline the limited capital-raising options for successful, sustainable co-op and mutual businesses that need to finance expansion and investment plans but do not want to give up control by their British customers or employees. Permanent mutual shares provide an opportunity to create a genuine marriage between what is known as patient capital and co-op and mutual organisations rooted in their communities that are looking for the finance to tackle long-term environmental, economic and social challenges.”
“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to enable co-operatives to issue permanent shares; and for connected purposes. Permanent mutual shares are the rocket fuel that would help the co-operative and mutual movement to double in size. That is an ambition that the Co-op party has long sought, and I am pleased to say that the Labour party now seeks it. They would offer to housing associations, agricultural co-operatives, employee-owned businesses and mutual insurers a source of venture capital that, crucially, would not require them to demutualise, end their British ownership or scrap their democratic governance. The independent mutuals think-tank Mutuo has suggested that a Government ambitious for British business to succeed and grow could help the sector raise some £13 billion over five years using permanent mutual shares.”
“The right hon. Lady will be aware of a protest outside the Indian high commission last Sunday that turned violent. Staff working for the high commission were injured, and the high commission itself was vandalised. I am sure the whole House will agree that there should be no place in our country for such behaviour, and that the Indian high commissioner and his staff should be able to go about their diplomatic duties without fear of such events happening. What further steps will the Home Office take, working with the Metropolitan police, to ensure there is no repeat of such behaviour?”
“It is hardly surprising that the International Trade Committee has been abolished by Ministers, but instead of improving the scrutiny of trade negotiations, or even just the regulations implementing the procurement chapters of the negotiations, the amendment makes things a little easier for Ministers.”
“After all, surely one of the most important lessons from these two trade deals is that the process of parliamentary scrutiny for trade deals is not fit for purpose. Granted, Ministers in the Department for International Trade were busy disagreeing and attacking each other at the time, but when the then Trade Secretary failed to turn up eight times to give evidence before the International Trade Committee on these deals—and despite that, would not extend the time for the Committee to report on the deals to the House—it became clear that something was very amiss with the system of scrutiny.”
“Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), when he explained, back in November, that we “gave away far too much for far too little in return”. —[ Official Report , 14 November 2022; Vol. 722, c. 424.] He also said that “the value of the UK agri-food market access offer was nearly double what we got in return”. I have also considered carefully whether this amendment from the other place improved the scrutiny by Parliament, or even the scrutiny of how the regulations bringing into effect the procurement chapters of these trade deals are implemented. If the amendment had forced Ministers to consult with and in the nations and regions of the UK before the regulations were introduced, it would have been extremely helpful.”
“One of the questions that the amendment raises is whether its wording in any way helps to offset, even just a little, those significant negotiating failures by the Government. We on the Labour Benches warned Ministers that the Australian deal would be used as a precedent by the other countries with which Ministers are negotiating, and as the Minister knows, that is exactly what is happening. The weaknesses in the deal that his predecessors negotiated are now being used to demand further concessions in our current negotiations, particularly by the countries with big agricultural interests. I have considered carefully whether this amendment helps us to find any comfort following the devastating analysis of these trade deals offered to the House by the right hon.”
“Although there is support across the House to increase trade with our friends in Australia and New Zealand—particularly on the Labour Benches, not least because both countries are now led by progressive Labour Governments—there has also been widespread concern, among hon. Members and certainly outside the House, about what Ministers have negotiated, particularly in the trade deal with Australia. As I say, this amendment feels like a missed opportunity to begin to address those concerns. We know that Ministers decided to throw British farmers under the bus, ignoring the concerns of the National Farmers Union. We know that the Prime Minister could have intervened, but did not. And we know that the desperation to get any deal meant that too much negotiating leverage was given up.”
“This amendment, and the debates in the Lords, strike me as a big missed opportunity—not for want of trying by Opposition colleagues—to start attempting to put things right. Abolishing the Department for International Trade and moving the deckchairs around in Whitehall is not going to hide away the Conservatives’ dismal record on trade and economic growth. We are lagging behind the rest of the G7 on exports to the world’s fastest growing economies in the G20, and nothing that the Minister has said so far, this afternoon or in previous debates, is going to improve the situation any time soon. I do not want to detain the House too long, but while the amendment might involve the insertion of only one word in the Bill, the difference it makes does matter, both for what it does and what it does not do.”
“Last week the Office for Budget Responsibility published figures on trade which changed the context for this debate on what is an apparently innocuous amendment from the other place. According to the OBR, we now face two years of declining exports, with a huge 6.6% drop in British exports this year, a further drop next year, and then an average growth in our exports of less than 1% for the next three years. We are reaping the results of the Conservatives’ failure to negotiate a better trade deal with the European Union or complete a trade deal with the United States, and the impact of significant cuts in support for attendance at trade shows and access to overseas markets is now all too obvious.”
“It would be very helpful for small businesses across the UK if he set out the Department’s plan to support small businesses that want to access the Australian and New Zealand markets and take advantage of the trade preferences in these two deals. We will not seek to divide the House, but this amendment is a reminder of the Government’s woeful performance on trade and exports, and of the desperate need for a new Government determined to lift up the living standards of everyone in this country, not just the already very wealthy, by delivering more exports and sustained economic growth.”