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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“Talking to headteachers and others involved in the financial governance of our schools, I am concerned, first, about the funding difficulties that covid is causing our schools; secondly, about the limited financial support the Government have so far offered; and, thirdly, about the difficult financial backdrop faced by schools, even before coronavirus became an issue. I am also concerned about the increased difficulties that covid is causing those children with special needs; the mental health challenges facing our young people, which are being exacerbated as a result of covid; and what the feared increase in child poverty will mean for schools and their finances. One of the many excellent high schools in my constituency expects to incur, over 12 months, approximately £175,000 in extra costs due to covid.”
“I pay particular tribute to Harrow’s headteachers. They are a remarkable group of very talented leaders and generally have very strong staff teams in their schools. Since the beginning of this term, students from 12 schools have had to self-isolate, but in general the return to school has gone relatively well. I am a former pupil of two Harrow schools and am now a parent of a child at one, and I have many friends whose children are either at or have been at Harrow schools. What happens in the borough’s schools and their funding is a lively concern in the many conversations that I have as a constituency MP.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the financial implications of covid-19 for schools. I am grateful to Mr Speaker for giving me the opportunity to raise an issue of considerable importance to my constituents and, I suspect, constituents across England. Schools in Harrow and across the country are facing a very tough financial year because of their extra covid costs. I say gently to the Minister that Ministers are not yet doing enough to help. Harrow is blessed with a very strong state sector, with generally excellent primary and secondary schools, as well as a strong sixth-form college and good further education provision. The schools work together extremely well and the quality of Harrow’s schools remains a central attractive part of the borough’s offer to families with children.”
“The truth is that Ministers have set up a half-baked inquiry in response to this extraordinary scandal, without the powers to fully get to the bottom of this mess. Will the Minister at least commit to returning to this House to set out in full both the compensation arrangements and any financial implications for the future of the Post Office?”
“I share the concern that non-league clubs—major community assets such as Harrow Borough, Rayners Lane and, indeed, Wealdstone football club—will face a very difficult financial future without urgent financial support. The financial vulnerability of all but elite clubs underlines the need for wholesale reform of football financing, so is it not now time to impose a levy on the TV rights income premiership clubs receive, to support long-term investment in sport in all our communities?”
“Will the Minister set out for us whether the list of drugs covered by the regulations will be exactly the same as under the current EU regulation?”
“One small but potentially significant difference between this SI and the EU regulation it supersedes is that, under the EU regulation, drugs sold only in developing countries have to be marked differently to those sold here. That is not in the current draft of the regulations. Why the change?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for his answer to the previous question. The reason it is important is that the markings on the drugs for sale to developing countries potentially make it easier for customs authorities to seize those drugs, recognising that they should not be being sold back into a developed country. However, the draft instrument also does not include the requirement for Ministers—as the previous EU regulation did for the European Commission—to publish a report on the export numbers of drugs. Again, why the change?”
“My apologies—perhaps I did not make the question clear. It is perfectly reasonable that there is no need to reference the EU Commission, but there is surely a need to report on the number of drugs affected in this way. There is no requirement in the draft instrument, as there is in the EU regulation that it supersedes, for such a report. I simply ask why there is no need, in the Minister’s view, for a report on the number of drugs exported under the draft regulations.”
“The regulations that we are debating are part of the process that led on from that generics company breaking the big pharmaceutical industry’s cartel in relation to antiretrovirals going to Africa. The pharmaceutical industry is now very different, compared with the period covered by the documentary, but the issue of patents and intellectual property remains problematic for the development of, and access to, medicines needed by both developing and developed countries. That subject that deserves further interrogation by the House, but I recognise that now is not the time. As I said, we will support the regulations, but I look to the Minister for answers to the serious issues that we have raised.”
“It would be good to hear what further progress Ministers seek in that regard. Finally, the regulations remind me of that excellent documentary “Fire in the Blood”, from 2013, which tells the story of the international obstruction of access to low-cost antiretroviral drugs that could have been used much earlier in the treatment of HIV and AIDS in Africa. The obstruction was driven by multinational pharmaceutical companies determined to protect their patents and, clearly, their profits. Their obstruction is estimated to have resulted in 10 million to 12 million completely unnecessary deaths from AIDS. The cartel was eventually broken by the Indian generics company Cipla, led by a remarkable man called Yusuf Hamied.”
“It is recognised across the world that its ability to shut itself off from other countries, and the measures that Jacinda Ardern’s Government put in place, significantly limited the number of covid cases, in comparison with many other countries, including ours. However, if we want to be an open trading route, it is important to remember what has happened more recently in New Zealand, where visitors to the country brought covid with them, and there have been small spikes in coronavirus infection. That surely underlines the point that we cannot shut ourselves off from developing countries. If diseases develop in them, their citizens may bring those diseases to our country. That underlines the need for systems to be in place to get drugs to everyone in the world who needs them.”
“At some point, although I recognise that now is probably not the moment, it would be good to hear what the Government are doing to encourage the newly merged Foreign Office and Department for International Development to continue to work with developing countries to try to get them to extend universal health coverage and stronger regulation of drugs. The regulations also matter because of the need that I mentioned to get new medicines into developing countries at prices that people can afford. In that context, perhaps it is worth using the example of a successful developed country’s handling of covid. New Zealand has been highly successful.”
“Presumably they will be quite expensive at first. What arrangements are there for tiered pricing for those products? The regulations are an important reminder of the huge market failure in getting access to medicines for all those who need them. They are a reminder of the importance of universal health coverage, and the powerful difference that it makes to the health of a nation. We in the UK have a far greater chance of getting the medicines that we need from time to time, because we have a health system with national coverage, and licensing regulation that is usually effective. The Government’s role in the procurement of medicines is critical to helping to lower the price of drugs so that everyone can get access to them.”
“That begs a further question. What are the processes for encouraging pharmaceutical companies to provide drugs for the treatment of other diseases, such as cancers? Rates in developing countries are rising fast. That is not to downplay the significance of AIDS, TB and malaria, but other medical conditions, which have high rates in the UK and elsewhere, are rising fast in developing countries. Similar arrangements may be needed for drugs to treat those conditions, as there are for AIDS, TB and malaria. What action is being taken across Government to encourage pharmaceutical companies to make tiered pricing arrangements available? Specifically, and topically, on covid, there have been international discussions about making vaccines available to developing countries if they are successfully developed, as we all hope.”
“A traditional symbol is used to signify medicines: the symbol of Asclepius, from Greek mythology. What is Ministers’ aversion to that symbol being used to help demarcate the boundary between drugs for sale in developing countries and those for sale in developed country markets such as ours? It seems an obvious point to help customs authorities and others to seize goods wrongly sold back to the UK and elsewhere. What thought processes have gone on within the Department on that point? At the moment, pharmaceutical companies themselves or exporters have to apply to the Secretary of State to have a product listed under the EU regulation. What, if any, consultation has there been with developing countries, or experts on access to medicines, to encourage pharmaceutical companies to seek listing under these regulations?”
“We are in negotiations with Ghana, Kenya, Cameroon and Côte d'Ivoire to try to roll over trade agreements, but those have not yet been completed. Is there any reason to be concerned that the export of drugs to those four countries, which could reasonably be sold into neighbouring, even poorer countries, might be affected if those crucial trade agreements are not able to be rolled over? I recognise that this is not necessarily the Minister’s immediate area of expertise, but it would be good to have a reply to that. A significant difference in the regulations, as I alluded to in one of my interventions on the Minister, is around the marking of drugs. The current EU regulation requires clear differentiation between the drugs to be sold in developing countries and the same drugs sold in developed countries’ markets.”
“Although the instrument is about trade diversion, I say gently to the Minister that the Department for International Trade does not, from what I hear, have many staff who are specialists in access to medicines in developing countries, or in medicines per se. What is the process for consultation between the Department for International Development, as it was, and the Department of Health and Social Care, which does have expertise in such areas? Perhaps more critically, what process is there for consulting international bodies such as the World Health Organisation? I do not want the Minister to think that I am disappointed that he is the Minister answering for the Government today, but there is a potential issue with roll-over trade agreements.”
“Without the regulations, Britain would suddenly become a very attractive market for the corrupt and immoral wanting to exploit Brexit to export drugs meant for the world’s poorest into the UK. For that reason, Opposition Members will not seek to divide the Committee—tempting as it is, given that we have so many Conservatives sitting on these Benches. However, I have a series of concerns about the drafting of the regulations and their handling by the Department for International Trade, which I hope the Minister will take seriously. If he cannot answer them today, perhaps he will give us a note in writing.”
“The prices these medicines typically retail at in developed countries would put them out of reach for many in developing countries if prices were not adjusted. Tiered pricing, which is used to make these drugs affordable to the poorest and most vulnerable, was a significant step when it was agreed, and it continues to be an important practice in pharmaceutical markets. There is legitimate concern that, without the safeguards that the EU regulation helped to create, the unscrupulous would seek to resell essential drugs back to developed countries, such as ours, from developing countries, to create a tidy sum for themselves. The EU’s internal assessment of the regulation that this SI supersedes is that it worked extremely successfully, preventing the reimportation into the EU of key AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria medicines.”
“I welcome the chance to respond to the Minister’s comments. Access to medicines for developing countries, to tackle HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, remains critical not only for the poorest people of the world, but for those comparatively better-off nations, such as ours, as I hope to set out. While there has been huge success over the past 20 years in bringing down the numbers infected with HIV and those dying of AIDS, we need to recognise that there are still just under 1 million deaths a year from them. The regulations therefore remain very important. Developing countries need to ensure that their citizens have access to the medicines produced by pharmaceutical giants such as GlaxoSmithKline and others.”
“Further to the question asked by the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will know that financial services firms in the UK generate a huge number of jobs, a not insignificant number of which are held by my constituents. Will he tell the House exactly what progress has been made on the vital issue of achieving equivalence, and what remains to be sorted out?”
“Shop workers have faced rising violence in recent years, and yet too often the perpetrators are not being brought to justice, partly, at the moment, because of lengthy backlogs in court hearings. Industry experts, business and trade unions are all calling for greater legal protection for shop workers and for more investment in the court system. When are Ministers going to listen?”
“As elsewhere, the numbers in Harrow with covid are on the rise. Tests are available for key workers, but I am told that parents and their children cannot get a covid test “for love nor money” in Harrow or near Harrow. I say gently to the Secretary of State that that does not yet feel like a world-leading test and trace system. Will he take a specific look at the circumstances in Harrow, and in particular at why the nearby test centre at Heathrow is so unused at the moment?”
“Although the growth in trade, particularly in services, with India is good news, the UK’s trade in goods with India increased by just 5% in the past five years, while the rest of the G7 all saw double-digit growth, with the US and France seeing increases of almost 40%. There is no UK trade envoy to India, and the Select Committee thinks that visa restrictions are holding Britain back. Why does the Minister think other G7 countries are doing so much better on trade in goods with India?”
“I beg to move amendment 16, in clause 2, page 2, line 34, leave out subsections (7) and (8) and insert— “(7) No regulations may be made under subsection (1) in relation to an agreement which meets the criteria in subsection (3) or (4) after the end of the period of five years beginning with IP completion day.” This amendment would bar any extension to the five-year window for making regulations to implement EU rollover agreements.”
“Imagine our surprise on seeing in the Bill clause 2(7), which suggests that a period of five years might be needed after implementation day, with the option to extend by another five years, to conclude those roll-over agreements. Bear in mind that we were told that deals such as the South Korea, Japan and Canada deals were going to be easy to complete and should be done by Brexit day—certainly, we were led to believe, by implementation day.”
“As you will remember, Mrs Cummins, the Minister and his colleagues have presented the Bill as being purely about rolling over agreements already long since negotiated with the European Union. Effectively, they say, it is just a matter of changing “EU” to “UK”, putting a comma in a different place, dotting the odd i or crossing the odd t, or making some other little tweak—in practice, minor changes to deals that have already been done. Indeed, so confident was the former Secretary of State for International Trade about that, that he committed to get all 40 trade agreements with the European Union rolled over into UK-specific trade deals by March last year.”
“It is good to have you back in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. On Thursday afternoon, when you were not with us, we had one or two moments of light. The hon. Member for Stafford clearly began to feel nervous about whether the Bill was properly drafted, asking me to go into further detail about what was wrong with the Bill. The Minister helpfully confirmed that Command Papers published by his Department are not worth the paper they are written on once 12 months have passed and that there is absolutely no guarantee that the House will get either a debate or a vote on any future UK-US deal. It is therefore a particular pleasure to have the chance to return to the subject of continuity or roll-over agreements and to speak to these amendments.”
“I am relatively new to the Trade Bill and am only catching up with the discussions that my hon. Friend and others have had about these continuity agreements. Something odd certainly seems to have happened. It is true that the Minister has managed to get a deal done with the Faroe Islands.”
“It is certainly true that in exchanges at the Dispatch Box over the past two weeks, we have been led to believe that these 40-odd agreements will be very easy to complete. Yet only 20 of them have been completed thus far. It looks, to all intents and purposes, as though a number of the agreements are not going to be completed by implementation day—and that, surely, is an extremely surprising eventuality for all of us to contemplate.”
“26, Q31.] Again, when the Minister gets to his feet, it would be helpful if he gave us a little more detail on the substance of what is going on in those negotiations. I thought we were told that when we left the European Union, we would stop being a rule taker any longer, and here it appears that Japanese negotiators are telling us: “Do a deal or you don’t get your trade agreement in time.””
“Just on Tuesday, the Financial Times carried a story saying that Japanese negotiators have given Britain an ultimatum: “Do the deal with us in six weeks, or we will not be able to get it through our Parliament and there will be no continuity trade agreement in place by 31 December.” Bear in mind that Professor Winters, in his evidence to the Committee on Tuesday 16 June, at Question 31, said in response to the probing of my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central that “with Japan, we do not really know what the Government intend to discuss with the Japanese Government, but the analysis that we got last month was—what shall we say?—studiously unspecific.” –– [ Official Report, Trade Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2020; c.”
“As I understand it, negotiations have not even begun between the UK and Turkey, never mind being close to reaching any sort of conclusion. Let us take the UK-Japan continuity agreement. Again, we are led to believe that this is simply a matter of two very close allies sitting down together briefly and changing the words “EU-Japan” to “UK-Japan”, as well as perhaps changing the odd comma here or there, and dotting the odd i and crossing the odd t. In practice, however, something very different appears to be taking place.”
“It is an extremely competitive market already; a 15% tariff would pretty much knock that on the head.” He went on to underline a similarly important point: “At the same time, because the UK has no tariffs on steel, we would still have up to half a million tonnes of steel coming in from Turkey”. –– [ Official Report, Trade Public Bill Committee, 16 June 2020; c. 42 to 43, Q59.] We would not only have an uneven trading relationship when it came to steel exports, given the huge tariffs; suddenly, imports of Turkish steel into the UK would have no tariffs at all, creating even more competition for UK steel to face in the domestic market. That is a profoundly disturbing and worrying situation, and it would be helpful to have a little more clarity from the Minister, when he gets to his feet, about what is going on in those negotiations.”
“In Question 59, she asked: “Mr Warren, if there were continuity trade agreements that did not roll over, what would be the consequences for the steel industry?”. Mr Warren talked initially about the continuity trade agreements with north African nations such as Morocco and South Africa. He then cut to the chase on one of the biggest markets for UK steel exports: Turkey. Talking about the so-called continuity trade agreement, he said: “Turkey…probably will not be carried over, regardless of the Bill.” He went on to say that the Bill would allow the continuity and trade agreement to happen, “but with politics and the complexities of negotiations, I fear, that agreement will not be in place by the end of the year, which would result in 15% tariffs, on average, on UK steel going to Turkey— 8% of our exports.”
“If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I will come to South Korea in due course. The five-year point, perhaps, is understandable in the context of South Korea, but it is slightly odd that Ministers think they might not be able to get the South Korea deal done even in five years, and might need another five. One has to ask why we would need 10 years to put together a roll-over agreement that is simply, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington said, a cut-and-paste job—a matter of just switching “UK” for “the European Union”. The hon. Member for South Ribble helped throw a little light on the issue during her questions to Mr Richard Warren, the head of policy for UK Steel, in our second sitting.”
“They are in no rush whatever to complete a trade deal with the UK, notwithstanding the studiously unspecific comments the Secretary of State gave us at questions last Thursday about how good natured the conversations had been with whoever she had spoken to in the Canadian Government.”
“He had a little fun with us, it would be fair to say, on Tuesday afternoon. Again, however, there does not seem to be any sign of the UK-Canada talks being completed by 31 December. The Minister has been at pains to sell us the great virtues of the EU-Canada deal, and presumably—I would ask him this—there will be similar virtues from a UK-Canada deal, but why is there no obvious sign of any progress towards a signing ceremony for a UK-Canada deal? In the quote from the Canadian Government regarding why negotiations have not advanced at a more rapid pace, they made it very clear that they were waiting to see how EU-UK talks got on. One got the strong sense that Canadian negotiators are sitting out in the garden smoking a cigar and planning their holidays.”
“My hon. Friend is right. Let us bear in mind another point before I come on to Canada. Negotiations are going on not only with the US in relation to the transatlantic partnership with the EU, but we still have not concluded a continuity trade agreement with Andorra, as I understand it. Presumably, one of the Minister’s civil servants is sitting in a room somewhere, worrying about what will be in the UK-Andorra agreement, when they could be properly deployed to trying to sort out whatever the problems are in the UK-Japan agreement. Again, I remind the Committee that we were told that that agreement would be incredibly simple to sort out. I think the Minister said it was just a continuity trade agreement or just a roll-over agreement. Let us come to the UK-Canada talks—one of the great favourites of the Minister.”
“The good news is that the man who introduced austerity, destroyed our economy and damaged public services has finally left the Government. The bad news is that one of his chief cheerleaders is moving into your Department. Whatever you do, given the way in which they have messed up the economy, don’t let them mess up trade agreements. Write into the Bill a bit of extra time—five or 10 years, or perhaps even longer—so that we can get these trade agreements done.” The Minister may not share my assessment of how this provision got written into the Bill.”
“He has repeatedly said that roll-over agreements will be simply a matter of rolling over the EU agreements into UK agreements, changing some tiny details, and that they will all be done on time. One wonders, then, why we need the flexibility set out in subsection (7). Let us remember when the previous Trade Bill was prepared and developed. It probably happened at around the time the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) took over as Prime Minister. Members of the Committee will remember that she decided to sack George Osborne, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, for gross incompetence. One can imagine that the Cabinet Secretary got on the phone to the permanent secretary at the Department for International Trade and said, “There’s good news and there’s bad news.”
“Let me chide my hon. Friend for his negativity. We were told at the last general election that an oven-ready Brexit deal would come before us, with a wonderful new free trade agreement, easy to sign, with the European Union. Presumably the scepticism that I have allowed to creep into my remarks about whether the roll-over agreements will be signed by 31 December are entirely unreasonable, and the Minister will say that all the other 20, even the one with Andorra, will be done by 31 December. I know that the South Koreans want to start completely fresh talks in about 18 months’ time, but surely that will not take five years, or 10 years to complete—or will it? I am an optimist. I take the Minister at his word.”
“If the Committee remembers when the last Trade Bill was discussed, so confident were the previous ministerial team that this power was actually not quite as necessary as first appeared, they agreed to reduce the sunset period from five years to three years. One can only assume that the Cabinet Secretary got back on the phone after the current Prime Minister was selected and said, “I’m really sorry to bring you bad news, but one of the chief acolytes of the little-lamented George Osborne is back in your Department—””
“My hon. Friend has always grounded his remarks in reality. Let us remember that Conservative Ministers and Members have always wanted to present trade negotiations as a Christmas sale, where one just turns up and gets a shedload of lovely bargains. They have not, as yet, been open and honest with the British people about the trade-offs that trade negotiations inevitably bring, on which—I suspect this afternoon—more anon. I gently suggest to my hon. Friend that we are likely to hear the Minister, in his wind-up speech, chastising us again for our lack of belief in the calibre of the Secretary of State himself and the Department to complete these UK-specific trade agreements.”
“Limiting the length of time that the Bill can be used to push that deal through with the minimal levels of scrutiny as it allows is even more necessary.”
“The further we get from the point when the EU signed a deal with a third country, the more likely, surely, a UK-specific deal is to be significantly different from the deal that the EU negotiated. It is true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central said, that South Korea has agreed a continuity deal, but only on the proviso that a new deal would be properly negotiated in 18 months’ time. The further away from the signing of the EU-South Korea deal and the UK-South Korea continuity deal, the more likely it is that the new deal will be very different. Therefore, more parliamentary scrutiny—even the limited parliamentary scrutiny that the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 provides—will be merited.”
“So surely it is a sensible step to limit the Bill’s ability to help Ministers to bypass parliamentary scrutiny of the trade agreements they conclude, even in the small way that Ministers have previously advanced themselves of reducing the sunset period from five years to three years. If they cannot face the embarrassment of backing an amendment that was first tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North, perhaps they will show a little courage and back the amendments that they brought forward as a result of a deal with Tory Back-Benchers. If they do not vote for amendments 20 to 23, it will be further evidence that when Tory MPs do a deal with Ministers they cannot rely on it until it is written on the face of legislation.”
“That is hardly the sort of robust parliamentary scrutiny that such a trade agreement would deserve. On Second Reading of the present Bill on 20 May the hon. Member for Huntingdon repeated his criticism at column 621 and noted that not only might visas be an issue with respect to trade agreements; the country that wanted to roll over an agreement with us might also want military or intelligence provisions to be added in as part of a package. Similarly, any slightly amended deals in five or three years’ time could also be covered, and could be used to implement such trade agreements with other wide-ranging implications and with minimal levels of scrutiny.”
“He pushed them hard on Second Reading and, clearly, in private negotiations, to table their own amendments on Report, to limit the amount of overreach and potential abuse of the current weak scrutiny arrangements for trade agreements. On Report two years ago the hon. Gentleman advanced an entirely plausible argument, and talked about the possibility of a country where there is an EU trade agreement saying to us: “‘Yes, we agree that you can roll over, but let’s face it, you are a market of only 50 million people rather than 500 million, so we’ll agree to roll over, but only on condition that we also get 50,000 visas a year.’” —[ Official Report , 17 July 2018; Vol. 645, c. 274.] Under the present Bill, that trade agreement could be pushed through the House of Commons with only a 17-member Committee talking for 90 minutes.”