Bill Esterson
MP for Sefton Central · Labour · United Kingdom
“As the Prime Minister said on Tuesday, our energy supply and our energy security are not a question of having either oil and gas, or renewables; they are about both. It is a great pity that proper process was not followed in 2022 or 2023. [ Interruption.”
“I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to continuing Britain’s global leadership on climate action, including by going to COP31. I also welcome his focus on breathing space for people and businesses, but, as he said, it will take a lot more than that to deliver the growth and reindustrialisation that he is so committed to.”
“Last week the Committee heard from Claire Dykta, the director of strategy and policy at NESO, who told us: “Operational decisions are taken by authorised, trained personnel only.” Her comments were confirmed by Alastair Martin, the chief strategy officer at Flexitricity, who, in the same session, said: “I do not think the idea that the he…”
“As the Minister has just said, new nuclear is essential for energy security. It is also essential as an alternative career for workers in oil and gas.”
“Paul and Susan Robinson each worked for the Health and Safety Executive for more than 40 years. They have not been able to plan for their retirement since finishing work last year; they have been living off their savings and the small loan that they have had. They are typical of the dozens of constituents who have contacted me.”
“Hudson primary school in my constituency does a brilliant job. It is a family hub, it specialises in support for children with SEND and autism, and it has a nursery, but its building, which is 80 years old, suffers from a high water table that brings damp, mould and structural problems for the building—as does occasional flooding.”
The complete record
Every one of 4,882 lines we hold for Bill Esterson, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 27 of 98.
“Let’s look at those and see: are these the sorts of trade agreements that are working from an environmental point of view? Are they encouraging the right sort of trade and the right sorts of goods and services? And are they allowing us to take the actions we will need to take to fight climate change and reverse biodiversity decline?”
“The process gone through there demonstrates the need for, first, a better approach to scrutiny and oversight for how we conduct and design our trade policy. Secondly, there is the point about saying, “Let’s review and refresh.” With the continuity agreements in particular, there is a need to put in place mechanisms to review those in due course and to check up on them and say, “Are these delivering the economic things we need from the trade agreements but also, importantly, the environmental issues that we need to deliver on?” If we want to become a global leader in environmental issues, we need to think about what that means for all areas of policy. We cannot simply rely on directly environmental ways to deliver those.”
“Q Thank you, Ms Cummins. Good morning, Tom and David. Tom, you just talked about the chance to redefine trade agreements. For starters, can you talk us through the government procurement agreement and the continuity trade agreements? What is your view of what the Bill does in both areas? Do you have any concerns, and is there anything you would like to add to the Bill in those areas? Tom West: Sure. I will focus on the continuity trade agreements and what is being done there. It is worth saying at the outset that it is sensible to try to roll over and maintain where we are, as a starting point. It is also important to see that as a starting point as to where we are and where we want to go.”
“Q Great. Thank you. David Lawrence, could you answer the same question? Perhaps you could share your thoughts on where this relates to the GPA as well as to the continuity agreements? David Lawrence: Could very quickly remind me what the question was?”
“We have concerns about the GPA and the way that public procurement works, but scrutiny is absolutely the priority. If we do not have that, there is no way Parliament can make sure that trade in the future meets with those high standards, and there is no democratic representation or transparency.”
“In Westminster, MPs have less of a say over trade deals than MEPs in Brussels or, indeed, Members of Congress in Washington DC. If I am honest, I think lots of people would be quite surprised and shocked to learn that their own elected MPs do not have a say over these trade agreements, the new deals we are doing with the EU, the US, Australia and Japan, or the new ones announced yesterday. It is not clear who people are meant to write to or who represents them and their interests when they are concerned about how these deals might affect their livelihoods, the food they buy or, as Tom mentioned, environmental standards and principles. For us, scrutiny is an absolute priority. We also want to use trade to maintain high standards.”
“It was designed to deal with secret defence treaties between European powers. Today’s trade agreements are a million miles from that. They cover a huge range of policy areas—from food standards and environmental regulations, to NHS prices and digital services. We think it is completely inappropriate to expect that MPs should have no say in how those deals are made. It is also worth noting that that is an issue that many members of the general public are concerned about. If you think back to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP—the proposed EU-US trade deal—you will see that one of the reasons it collapsed was that people were not happy about the idea that these important talks were happening behind closed doors and that their own elected representatives did not have much of a say over them.”
“What is your view of the Trade Bill as it is? Do you have concerns about it, and are there any additions you would like to see made to it? David Lawrence: As I said earlier, parliamentary scrutiny is a big concern for us. When the Trade Bill was first introduced, which was a while ago now, it was billed as an open conversation on scrutiny and a new framework for how trade could be done, but in fact we see nothing new on parliamentary scrutiny, and so far the Government have not seemed to be very open to having that conversation or to listening to proposals for how scrutiny should operate. That is not just our concern; it is shared by a lot of other NGOs and businesses, and indeed by many MPs. The UK currently uses a pretty archaic form of treaty scrutiny that dates back to the first world war.”
“One of the immediate effects of covid was countries putting in place things like export controls and wanting to localise their supply chains. Procurement is one of the many tools that Governments can use to support local industries in that way and to maintain standards. The more that Parliament has a say over that process, the better.”
“Q David Lawrence, you mentioned the GPA briefly at the end. Can you say what those concerns are about public procurement? David Lawrence: There is a scrutiny concern that is specific to public procurement as well—making sure that Parliament has a role, that there are democratic processes involved—and there is a standards concern to ensure that procurement can be used in a way that maintains standards. The Government have this levelling up agenda and the idea that post-Brexit Britain will support parts of the country that are not doing so well economically. Procurement is an opportunity to support those areas as well. As we have seen with covid, all sorts of big questions are raised around global supply chains.”
“Again, that is something that happens in other countries, but the UK is very much behind on this.”
“As you all know, it is not guaranteed that there will be an Opposition day that falls in that period, and if there is, the Opposition may decide to use it for other things. The Government are proposing a lot of new trade agreements, so the current system is not reliable in terms of ensuring that debate and vote on the deal. Fourthly, throughout this whole process we would like to see public consultation and independent impact assessment. There have been some half-hearted attempts at that. I sit on one of the expert trade advisory groups at the Department for International Trade, but there is not a well-established, formal process of consultation with actual trade agreements where businesses and NGOs are brought in to comment on and critique the trade agreements themselves. We have not seen that happen yet.”
“That is a practice that is done elsewhere: the EU has updates during negotiations. As I am sure all of you are aware, MPs are very much left in the dark. At the moment, US and EU negotiations are going on, but we rely on leaks, essentially, and reports from Brussels or from DC because there is no formal process for reporting back. Thirdly, after negotiations there should be a debate and a vote on the final deal to approve it. Again, that is something that happens in the US Congress and in the European Parliament. We do not have that guaranteed. The only way we can get a debate and a vote on a trade agreement is if the Opposition force a debate on it during an Opposition day within a 21-day sitting period.”
“Q Thank you. Just a follow-up question to both of you: what scrutiny system would you like to see in place? David Lawrence: From our perspective, there are four elements to an ideal scrutiny procedure. First, before negotiations begin, we think there ought to be a full debate, with a vote on the negotiation objectives, and that ought to be written into law. At the moment, the Government can grant a debate, if they want to—and they have done so, at very short notice, as some of you will remember, I am sure, on the US objectives and the EU objectives—but we want a guaranteed debate and vote on the objectives. Secondly, during negotiations, there should be regular reports back to Parliament on the progress of those negotiations, and, ideally, publication of texts from each negotiation round.”
“That is why it is something that businesses and NGOs are united on: regardless of your view on whether the specific trade deals are good or bad for the economy or society, at least if you have transparency, you know what is being discussed and what is on the table. That is why we are pushing for it, and we have joined the British Chambers of Commerce, the International Chamber of Commerce and the CBI in pushing for that level of transparency. It has been a source of frustration, not just among civil society but also among businesses, that these important deals are supposedly on the way but we do not know what is being discussed at the moment.”
“Q Before I get Tom West to answer, I have a question for David Lawrence. You talked about the importance of the publication of the negotiation text at the end of each round. Why is that so important? Indeed, why is the process you outlined so important? What sorts of things can go wrong if the level of scrutiny you described is not in place? David Lawrence: It is about public trust. We saw in the TTIP negotiations a lot of distrust that ultimately led to the deal falling apart. If you wanted TTIP to happen—if you want these trade agreements to work—you need the public behind you. If there is not transparency, there will be conspiracy, leaks, theories about what is being discussed, accusations and a lot of uncertainty.”
“If that is the case, we need to understand what that will do for us and what other benefits we might be able to get from a trade policy that is more closely aligned with our environmental ambitions.”
“Let us get that clear and written down so that our negotiators can point to it and say, “The conversation that we want to have—and, in fact, that we need to have—is around robust implementation of the Paris agreement, meeting our environmental goals”. Lastly, David mentioned the need for public support: this matters to the public and they care. For me, this goes to the question—and annunciating—what are we going to get from these trade deals? What is the benefit and value to people? That is very much part of the question and review of what our trade policy is for. We have seen various estimates of what a US trade deal might get us, for example, from an economic point of view. The figures sometimes are relatively small. I have seen some say that the benefit in reduction in tariffs might amount to £8 per household per year.”
“It is true here as much as in other areas: by involving the people affected by the policies, you get better policies and better buy in. There is another interesting point on the value of this. Last year the US negotiators said, “Look, we can’t refer to climate in our negotiations”. They were able to point to an Act of Congress and say, “Our hands are bound here. It’s impossible for us to do this”. In that way, a steer and an instruction from Parliament can strengthen our negotiating arm. As I have said, our vision is that the UK uses its blank sheet of paper on trade policy to align its trade policy with its global environmental ambition.”
“Q Thank you. Tom West, would you like to add to what David Lawrence has said? Tom West: We are supportive of the asks and processes David outlined. Greener UK, which is a coalition of environmental organisations, is also a signatory to the document David mentioned. I will just add some extra things around the side. First, once a trade deal is in place and up and running, there is a need for ongoing scrutiny and involvement of civil society in making sure it is being implemented in the right way. That is crucial looking forward. Secondly, to give a bit more clarity as to the value of this, within the environmental sphere, the value—in fact, the necessity —of public participation is long recognised. The Aarhus convention 1998 enshrines in law that the public must be engaged in the design of policies related to the environment.”
“Parliament has very little influence over what trade agreements look like, and very little ability to object to them if it comes to it.”
“In practice, we are probably talking about fairly minor changes in this space. In the grand scheme of things, I suppose the question we are asking ourselves is: would slowing this down for everyone in order to do this via primary legislation add sufficiently extra scrutiny on the whole? I am not convinced it would, considering that it is ultimately still a yes/no decision either way. Parliament is not going to change; it just has to decide whether it wants it. Here is where I think it speaks to the bigger issue, which the Bill does not address but is hard to ignore. I listened to some of the first panel, and they touched on it. Parliament’s role vis-à-vis trade policy is incredibly limited; it is largely an Executive competence.”
“There are obviously some concerns that they will change substantially, but those agreements are ones where we probably need to prioritise continuity over all else. In box 3, to my mind, they are new agreements, so I am not sure why they will be covered by a Bill that is focused on continuity—particularly in the case of Japan, where we have seen new objectives and even statements that we want to go beyond the EU’s existing agreement. I would conclude with the need to consider the counter- factual. What we are discussing here is not necessarily the whole trade agreement; we are discussing how we deal with the implementing legislation accompanying the trade agreement. If we think about what that covers in practice, we are largely just talking about procurement and perhaps some issues on technical barriers to trade—that is it.”
“The third category are just new agreements, because we have decided that they cannot be rolled over and we are set to renegotiate them. That would be Japan and Canada. I would also put South Korea stage 2 in that box, in that the South Korean roll-over agreement contains a commitment to consider renegotiating after three years, but it also contains a poison pill that means that we will inevitably have to, because the rules of origin provisions that allow for EU inputs into UK goods to continue to qualify for the agreement’s local content provisions expire after three years. In that case, it will be a renegotiated new agreement. As to whether I think the Bill is appropriate in its coverage, I think for box 1—pure continuity with minor changes—it is fine. For box 2—continuity but with big changes—I would say that it is probably still fine.”
“When it comes to the broad categorisation of continuity, I have a few questions. I would probably recategorise the agreements. I would start with category 1, which is the pure continuity agreements where there are just minor changes to be made. I am thinking of Chile, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Faroe Islands and the like. I would also include South Korea stage 1 in that box. My second box would be the agreements that are continuity agreements but will be substantially different from what exists within the EU. Those are the agreements with Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Turkey, and I would probably add Ukraine to that box as well. Because the existing relationship is so contingent on our EU membership, there is no doubt that the future agreement we have with them will be substantially different from today.”
“Looking at the provisions for the government procurement agreement, I can see why there might be some concerns about the powers given to the Executive to alter things in future, but I also understand why the provisions are there, in that the government procurement agreement will evolve over time, new members will accede to it and there will be a need to update it. Specifically on the continuity agreements, there are a few points that I would like to make. First, I am not sure that the scope is fully understood, in that it maybe covers more agreements than people think. As well as the ones that we all know about, for example Chile, Jordan and the like, it also covers Singapore and, to my reading, Vietnam, which was signed by the EU in June 2019. That is something that should be considered.”
“Q Good afternoon, Mr Lowe. Thank you for giving evidence. Can you talk us through your view of the Bill? Perhaps you could say a bit about the provisions on the GPA and the continuity trade agreements and how you see those provisions, whether you have concerns about them and whether there is anything you would like to see added to the Bill in either of those sections. Sam Lowe: The first thing that I should say is that I think the Bill is necessary; there is a need for continuity when it comes to the UK’s trade relationships with third countries.”
“I suppose it is required, in that there might be a need to get some legislation through very quickly at the last minute if some of these negotiations drag on, so there is an issue there. Your first point was about what is in the agreements.”
“Q Thank you very much for such a comprehensive opening. I want to ask you about what is and is not a new agreement, but in the context of what has already happened. I think I am right in saying that something like half the agreements covered by the Bill have already gone through. Are there concerns about some of the things that happened in those agreements? As some agreements have already gone through without the Bill, is the Bill needed in order for the remaining agreements to be negotiated and to pass? Sam Lowe: The question of whether it is needed is a very good one. I am not sure I can actually answer it. You have just acknowledged that some of the agreements have passed.”
“As the UK has an issue, which is that in many sectors we do not create enough local value added to qualify for free trade agreements under normal rules of origin-type provisions, we have inserted conditions that allow for EU inputs to continue to be accounted for—either indefinitely in the case with Chile, or temporarily with South Korea. That is not necessarily a concern, but it is interesting. It is actually quite a new approach to rules of origin, and the jury is out on whether it is WTO-compliant. I probably lean towards it being compliant, but I have certainly heard counterarguments.”
“Q Are there any concerns about what has gone through in the agreements that have passed already? Sam Lowe: I cannot confess to have looked at the text of every single one, but one of the concerns that had been raised was that there was an issue about whether the tariff rate quotas will have been changed in a specific agreement. When I looked at Chile in this case, the changes that had been made did, to my mind, make sense. For me, the most interesting point about some of the continuity agreements is the approach to rules of origin, which I mentioned earlier. It is the process by which a product qualifies for tariff-free trade under a trade agreement, dependent on the amount of local value added.”
“That has proven true for us with these continuity agreements, which is not a surprise to anyone in the trade community. Hopefully, that is not too long an answer.”
“Of course, all of that is not terribly surprising, but despite the knowledge that industry and other stakeholders were right when they said that more consultation was needed, the Bill still does not provide for that consultation to take place, which is a real lack, and an opportunity that should be seized. The consultation should not be seen as a negative; it should be seen as a positive. These agreements will last longer than they are expected to, and the successor agreements to them will take longer to negotiate than is estimated, because there is one thing that you can guarantee about a trade agreement negotiation process and it is that the target date for finishing it is not the date you will finish. You will definitely finish at some later point than you predict.”
“That is just as true when you are dealing with issues such as the GPA as it is when you are dealing with regular free trade agreements, or regulatory co-operation agreements, which are not really discussed that often but are fundamentally important—financial technology bridges, or FinTech bridges, and the like. That is the key thing that I have heard from industry, and the key thing that I have seen is that the continuity agreements are taking longer to reach than had been thought. I wish I had been wrong about some of my predictions back in 2018; unfortunately, pretty much all of them have turned out to be taking place. These agreements have been more difficult, they have been more different and there are gaps in coverage.”
“If you are negotiating with another party about economic affairs, the reason why you want industry to have a close relationship with you when you are doing that is because industry has relationships with industry on the other side—in the country that you are negotiating with. Industry can then help you to gain support from industry in your negotiating partner for the provisions that you are recommending, which are also in the interests of industry in that other country, or negotiating partner. If industry is not a close collaborator with you throughout the negotiating process—not just in setting up the terms that you are looking for before you negotiate, but throughout the negotiation and ratification process—you are robbing yourself of a key element that will help you to negotiate a successful outcome.”
“Therefore, these are fundamentally not the same agreements, yet they are treated, in terms of consultation with industry and Parliament, as if they are, when they are materially different. It is like anything else—if you start out on a road, you want to make sure that the destination you are heading towards is the destination you want to reach. I think that, as a country, the destination we should want to reach is that the country as a whole buys into the arrangements for trade policy that the country proposes to make. While I accept that in February 2019 the Government’s roadmap for consultation with Parliament and with civil society and the like began to approach what we would consider a more standard relationship, I offer this comment to Committee members to consider.”
“Based on my experience in trade policy, nobody makes exactly the same deal with a smaller party that they did with the larger party, because it is not in their interest to do that. In this case, we have even more reasons. As an example of how these agreements are not the same, I offer up the Swiss agreement. There are 20 mutual recognition chapters of the Swiss-EU agreement. The UK-Swiss agreement has only three, because Switzerland cannot agree that our regime is equivalent unless we continue to apply the EU regime, as the Swiss-EU agreement requires that. So, 24% of the UK’s exports and 16% of imports in that deal are not covered currently. That is also true in the agreement on customs, so UK goods will not be expedited through the Swiss border in many cases as a result.”
“There are some changes in this Bill, but the core of the issue is the road it sets out in terms of consultation on trade policy with not only Parliament, but industry as a whole. In my work, I see how Trade Ministries worldwide relate to stakeholders and how they choose to involve stakeholders in trade policy-making and negotiating. I understand the argument that the continuity agreements are intended to be as close as possible to and a simple replication of the provisions of the agreements that you benefited from via membership of the EU, and that consultation is not necessary because of that fact. As I said in 2018—and this remains true—these are not the same agreements. At that time, we did not have any of the agreements rolled over, if you will, so we assumed that they would not be the same agreements.”
“Q Good afternoon, Nick Ashton-Hart. Thank you for joining us. Give us your impression of the Trade Bill as it currently stands. In particular, please concentrate on the elements on the government procurement agreement and the continuity trade agreements. Do you have concerns or are there areas where you would like to see additions to either of those sections? Nick Ashton-Hart: Thank you very much for the question. Thank you all for asking me here. It is a great privilege and honour, as an immigrant who arrived here in 1986 with £900 in my pocket, to be heard by Parliament. With respect to the Bill, many of the comments I made about the Bill in the last Parliament remain true.”
“Anyone who has bought a car or a house will realise that those things stay the same. We will find that the choices that other countries are allowed to make in terms of their agreements with us are constrained by their deals with the great powers.”
“As is the case in the Norwegian agreement, we will find that in any third-country agreement we try to make, the EU will quite naturally have made conditions on that country’s negotiations with additional third countries—the regulatory choices that the third country has with other parties with which they negotiate, other than the EU, are constrained by the agreement with the EU. When it comes to regulatory chapters in trade agreements, there are really three major powers: the US, the EU and China. We do not have the regulatory freedom to determine, on our own sovereign nature, exactly what we do. Ultimately, we will adopt one of these three—we are smaller, and that is how it works. Big blocs carry the weight and tend to get more of what they want than do smaller parties. That is true of negotiating for anything in life.”
“Q That was very helpful. You mentioned the Swiss-UK agreement, and the differences in the mutual recognition chapters. Are there other agreements where there are similarly big gaps between the agreement that we are party to as members of the EU and the agreement that we have now signed with a partner? Nick Ashton-Hart: First, I should say that you will have testimony from other witnesses who will have more knowledge of all the continuity agreements than I do. As you know from our conversations, I am a services guy, so I tend to focus on services and digital services.”
“Food standards were not a matter for the Agriculture Bill—at least that is what MPs, including Conservative Back Benchers, were told on Report. They were told that they would be included in the Trade Bill. I am sure Agriculture Ministers were telling the truth, so will the Government accept Labour’s amendment to the Trade Bill to enshrine in law the principle that food imported under any free trade agreement must maintain our farming industry’s high production and safety standards?”
“In March, the Government said that Japan must show “increased ambition” and set a higher headline target on reducing carbon emissions ahead of COP26. Is that still the view of the Secretary of State? Will she show increased ambition and include more stretching, measurable and binding climate targets in the new free trade agreement she puts in place with Japan?”
“He is right that that fall is far larger than in the global financial crisis—it is the largest in history, over all the time in which such figures have been recorded. It is therefore essential that, where we can, we get what we are doing as accurate as possible. Following the hon. Member’s speech, I now have a much better understanding of the intention behind the amendment. I am confident that he is trying to do what he has set out. The Labour party, as we made clear on Second Reading, fully support the accession to the GPA. If that is the Government’s intention, it seems entirely right that they should make sure they do so, and it is odd that they have not already committed to that in the Bill.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. The hon. Member for Dundee East has made some important observations about our proceedings, which I agree with. We may take a slightly different view on pressing our amendments, and we will come to that in due course. I make no promise; it will depend on the nature of the Minister’s answers, his ability to garner information and what he says. The hon. Member rightly drew attention to the impact of the covid-19 crisis on trade. He also drew attention to the importance of discussing trade, and indeed legislating for international trade, at this time in recovering our economy and the prosperity of our people. He referred to the estimated fall in the economy of between 13% and 32%.”
“My hon. Friend makes a good point. We want businesses to take advantage of the opportunities available in procurement. Having the Government make the strength of that case through how they legislate is an important way of achieving that goal. It should be clearly set out that the procurement obligations that we currently have through our EU membership have passed into UK law via EU retained legislation, and the Government should make clear commitments to their implementation. The hon. Member for Dundee East said that, if the Government intend to implement the GPA, they should say so, to ensure the continuity that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West rightly referred to and to make sure that alignment in the regulations is in place straightaway.”
“My hon. Friend is quite right: we need to make more of the opportunities available in procurement, and this kind of amendment is a way of delivering on that agenda. I am pleased that the hon. Member for Dundee East has tabled the amendment. I note his comments about waiting, to ensure that the Minister is able to respond in full and in the event that he needs additional advice. I am happy to support the hon. Member in principle, on the basis of waiting to hear what the Minister’s reply might be.”
“I beg to move amendment 24, in clause 1, page 1, line 16, at end insert— “(1A) No regulations under subsection (1) may be made until the Secretary of State has entered into negotiations with other parties to the GPA with the objective of enabling greater labour market interventions and compliance with ILO standards in any UK procurement contract to which the GPA applies, and (a) the Secretary of State has made a statement to the House of Commons that the objective has been achieved either in full or in part, or (b) the Secretary of State has made a statement to the House of Commons that the objective has not been achieved.””
“In his remarks just now, the Minister said that we should have the same arrangement we have with the EU, and we agree with the accession to the GPA for that reason. But if we are to have the same arrangement that we have as members of the EU, there is also the significant matter of retained EU law, which needs to continue if that statement is to hold. In this case, it is the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, which will run out on 31 December 2020. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West has said, it is extremely important that we maintain the strongest possible procurement system for companies in this country, and there are other reasons referred to here to do with international and domestic labour rights.”