YouSaid · the spoken record
Emily Thornberry
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On the record 2005–2026
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“That is a heavy responsibility on our shoulders and it is therefore incumbent on us all to treat this debate with the seriousness that it deserves. That is why it is a source of regret that the one person whose decisions will matter above all in Westminster this week—the Secretary of State for International Trade—has chosen not to be here this evening. After all, it is the Secretary of State’s Trade Remedies Authority—appointed, empowered and inspired by her—that has made the misguided recommendations that have led to this crisis. It is her powers in relation to those recommendations and her freedom to take other issues into account which are the subject of the motion before us today.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Finally, it makes provision for the Leader of the Opposition to enable the emergency legislation to be considered next Monday if the Government fail to do so themselves. It is a pleasure to open this debate. It is a testament to the urgency and importance of the issues before us that so many Members have registered to speak. For that reason, I will not be taking many interventions. I believe that there are 24 Labour Back Benchers alone who want to contribute. We all recognise that the livelihoods and futures of steel communities across our country will be directly affected by the decisions taken in Westminster this week, but it is the motion before us tonight that creates the possibility that those decisions will be the right ones.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“14(1) shall not apply, and that precedence at that sitting shall be given instead to any Business of the House motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition which may be moved at the commencement of public business that day to make provision for urgent legislative action to protect the vital interests of the British steel industry. The motion before us disagrees with the recommendations of the Trade Remedies Authority to revoke half the current safeguards protecting our nation’s steel industry against potential floods of cheap imports. It requires the Government to bring forward emergency legislation, allowing them to reject those recommendations and extend all the current safeguards before they expire on 30 June.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I beg to move, That this House believes the British steel industry, and the livelihoods and communities it supports, should not be undermined by unfair competition from overseas; regrets that the Trade Remedies Authority has not accounted for the interconnectedness of the British steel industry, nor the impact of safeguard tariffs being maintained in the US and EU, when recommending the abolition of nine of the 19 existing safeguards on steel products; accordingly requires the Government to take urgent action by legislating to allow Ministers to reject the Trade Remedies Authority’s recommendation and temporarily extend the current safeguards; and orders that, at the sitting on Monday 28 June, Standing Order No.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“What will make it all the worse is that she, her think-tank allies and the Trade Remedies Authority are just plain wrong when it comes to the British steel industry. Opposition Members see a bright future for our steel communities, a green future and a future that creates wealth for our country and well-paid, good-quality jobs in our regions if we have the will to make that future happen.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“These are the voices the Secretary of State is listening to when it comes to safeguarding tariffs, when it comes to protecting British farming and when it comes to protecting British Steel. So no wonder the two acolytes she appointed to run the Trade Remedies Authority think their job is to promote free trade rather than to defend domestic producers, and have recommended this wrong-headed decision on steel as a result, and no wonder the Secretary of State, who said last month that she would do “whatever is necessary” to protect the UK steel industry, will not even attend this debate to discuss how she might go about doing that. If she refuses to act to protect our safeguard tariffs, it will be an unconscionable betrayal of Britain’s steel communities—one that they will never forget and one they will never forgive.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Listen to Mark Littlewood, director general of the Institute of Economic Affairs, who said: “It’s unsustainable for the government to prop up a steel industry which is no longer competitive internationally.” Listen to Matthew Kilcoyne, deputy director of the Adam Smith Institute, who described Government funding for the steel industry as “throwing…cash into a burning furnace”. These are not some obscure figures on the fringes of public life or some right-wing rent-a-quotes trying to get their names into The Telegraph . These are hand-picked members of the Secretary of State’s own strategic trade advisory group—her personal body of external advisers, whose sole representative from manufacturing industry is not from British Steel or Make UK, but is the director of JCB construction, and guess what? He is the biggest Tory party donor.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Because the Secretary of State will have no truck with such concerns, she has become the hero of the right-wing free trade think-tanks—the ones that hanker after the supposed improvements in productivity and efficiency if only our NHS was forced to compete, the ones that openly talk about the benefits of destroying the British farming industry so as to end subsidies for wildlife conservation and free up more land for developers, and the ones that inevitably are equally scathing about Government support for the British steel industry or the retention of our safeguard tariffs.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“But now she reserves her fury for the British farming industry and all of us in this House who oppose the deal that she has signed to flood our market and undercut our farmers with cheap and cruelly produced Australian meat. In the past seven years, the Secretary of State has seemingly been fully captured by the free trade dogma that insists on the right of the consumer to choose the cheapest product available from anywhere in the world and rails against any interference with that right, whether it is the maintenance of tariff safeguards to protect domestic producers, concerns about slave labour and human rights abuses, or the cruelty to animals and carbon admissions that are so often the hidden cost of cheap imports.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I said at the outset that the third and most fundamental issue affecting our debate today is the approach of the Secretary of State herself to the future of the British steel industry and whether she will accept our invitation to move emergency legislation, if that is how we vote tonight. If you had asked me that question seven years ago, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would have said yes. Back then, you may remember, the Secretary of State burst on to the political scene with an impassioned cry for us to buy more pears, apples and cheese grown and made here in Britain, and scathing criticism of those who thought that our food production could be outsourced overseas instead.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Which of those two options would be better is a discussion for another day, but one thing that we should be certain of now is that the Government cannot proceed with a decision on steel safeguards on the basis of recommendations by the TRA that have not even taken into account some of the most crucial factors at the heart of that decision. On that basis alone, I hope that Members in all parts of this House will agree on the need for emergency legislation to allow the Secretary of State to reject the TRA’s recommendations, extend the current safeguards beyond 30 June, and allow time for discussion about the right course of action for the future.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That leaves us with a fundamental dilemma: either the TRA’s remit needs to change so that it can consider the global context for its recommendations and take into account their impact on our jobs, communities and regions, our national defence, our civil infrastructure and our climate change objectives, or, alternatively, the Secretary of State’s powers need to change to allow her to weigh up all those factors against the TRA’s analysis and make a decision, with Parliament’s approval, based on our overall national interest, on what is best for Britain.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thirdly, it makes no sense whatsoever for the TRA to make recommendations affecting the British steel industry without considering the knock-on implications for our defence procurement programmes, for the construction of critical national infrastructure, and for the delivery of our net zero emission targets. All those major considerations for the Government will be dramatically altered depending on whether we are producing the majority of our steel we need here in Britain or importing it from abroad. Yet the potential impacts of its recommendations on those different areas were not among the factors considered by the TRA, because apparently it was not in its remit to do so.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Secondly, it makes no sense whatsoever for the TRA to conduct an economic test on the need for these safeguards that does not take into account the impact of removing them on the 34,000 well-paid, good-quality skilled jobs for steelmakers in Wales, Yorkshire and Humberside, the midlands, the north-east and elsewhere, and the 42,000 more in supply chain roles. These are exactly the kinds of jobs in exactly the kind of communities that the Government keep telling us are essential to level up our country, and yet the direct threat to those jobs and communities that dropping our safeguards would create is not one of the factors considered by the TRA, because it is apparently not in its remit to do so.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“At the same time, China is heading towards the 1 billion tonne mark for annual production and still has more than 300 million tonnes in spare capacity. In that context, it would be utter madness to remove half our current safeguards and expose our country to a flood of cheap imports from China and elsewhere at exactly the time that those suppliers are desperately hunting for an unprotected market. Yet the TRA has not given any consideration to the international context, because it is apparently not in its remit to do so.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The reason that we would argue that such an unusual move is a necessity is not just because of the urgent need to stop those steel safeguards expiring at the end of the month, but because this review process has exposed three fundamental problems in the remit of the TRA’s investigation that cannot have been intended by Parliament. First, it makes no sense whatsoever for the TRA to look at the UK’s safeguards on steel in isolation from what the rest of the world is doing with theirs and from what is happening in global steel markets. Let us consider the position that we are at present: eight of the world’s 10 largest steel markets have safeguards currently in place, with the US and the EU recently confirming that they are certainly keeping theirs.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am afraid that if Members read the Financial Times interview or studied its conclusions on steel safeguards, it is clear that the TRA has been found sorely lacking on both fronts, as many of us predicted that it would That brings me to the second of the three major issues before us this evening. If the TRA’s recommendations are flawed, what can the Secretary of State do about it? As the House will be aware, as the legislation stands, it does not allow the Secretary of State to reject the TRA’s recommendations in order to retain the existing state safeguards. The motion before us proposes emergency legislation, allowing the Secretary of State to do exactly that.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I would rather that we had a body that looked after the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and defended the steel industry. Even so, let us not forget a fundamental flaw at the heart of the TRA’s recommendations: the failure to understand that the safeguards put in place by the EU were deliberately intended to provide comprehensive protection across the steel industry as a whole, recognising that if one product line is exposed to cut-price imports, the competitiveness of the whole industry is immediately undermined. The TRA has either not understood that basic concept or has deliberately chosen to ignore it. Either way, I defy anyone in this House tonight to argue that the TRA’s recommendations must be considered sacrosanct either because of its objectivity or because of its expertise.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have no idea where the Secretary of State stands on that choice, because she has chosen not even to be here this evening, and has so far refused to take the emergency action that the Opposition have instead been forced to propose on her behalf. But if this House decides overwhelmingly to back the Opposition motion tonight and require the Secretary of State to maintain the safeguards, I believe that by sheer weight of pressure we can force her hand to do so, inject confidence back into our steel industry and forge a path for our steel communities to the brighter future that awaits them.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That type of certainty and confidence is the minimum that our steel industry has the right to expect from their Government, and if it cannot get that from them, Parliament must seek to provide it instead. That is the fundamental choice before us all tonight, but especially Conservative Members who may be debating with their conscience which way to vote. Will they side with the communities of Scunthorpe, Cardiff and Sheffield, who see a bright future for their industry, or will they side with the fanatics from the right-wing think tanks who see no future at all? Will they provide our steel industry with the safeguards that it needs to build for the future with confidence, or will they leave it to sink or swim in a flood of cheap imports from China?”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If we choose to do so in Britain, we can make the jobs in our steel industry the foundation for creating thousands more well-paid, good-quality, skilled jobs in other communities that need them, as we apply our skills and strengths in steelmaking to the new opportunities created by the green industrial revolution. However, to make all those things happen, there is something the Government must contribute. It is just as precious as public funding, but so much easier to provide, and that is a simple injection of certainty and stability. When our steel companies go into the world and seek investment in their future, they must be able to say with total confidence that the British Government have their back, will support them when necessary and will always do whatever it takes to defend them against unfair trade or a surge in cheap imports.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No, I will not give way at this stage. I am going to finish the speech. If we do wish to do so in Britain, we can wean ourselves entirely away from the cheap imported steel that causes 50% extra carbon emissions, and instead have a British steel industry that leads the world in the development of hydrogen steel technology and decarbonised steel production, and by doing so leads our country to the achievement of net zero. If we choose to do so in Britain, we can put home-produced steel at the heart of every defence contract and infrastructure project from warships to wind farms, and use British steel to build our way back to full economic recovery.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Secretary of State has shown that she is not that person, so there is only one question that matters today: will she guarantee to give Parliament not just a debate but a binding vote on the deal that she has agreed with Australia so that we can reject the terms she has agreed on farming and send someone else back to the table to get a better deal for our country?”
House of Commons17 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am afraid that this deal has exposed the Secretary of State as the one who is not up to the job. Britain needs and deserves better. We need someone who will keep the promises they make to the public and to Parliament; someone who will promote British standards around the world, not allow them to be undermined; someone who will protect our farming and steel industries, not throw them to the wolves; someone who will get the results for their country that the Australian Trade Minister has delivered for his.”
House of Commons17 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“[Interruption.] The right hon. Lady says it is wrong, but I am just quoting her Department. So British farmers are to be left worse off as a result of her deal. This is another broken promise, with more to come when New Zealand, Canada, Brazil and America demand the same deal for their exports. Let me be absolutely clear. We want good trade deals with other countries. We want trade deals that will create jobs, support our industries, and strengthen our economy and our recovery. But, to be blunt about it, we want the kind of results from our trade deals that Australia has just achieved from us. The Secretary of State told the newspapers in April that she would sit her inexperienced Australian counterpart in an uncomfortable chair and show him how to play at this level.”
House of Commons17 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No wonder Australia’s former negotiator at the World Trade Organisation said: “I don’t think we’ve ever done as well as this. Getting rid of all tariffs and quotas forever is virtually an unprecedented result.” Of course, he is right. When Japan and Korea negotiated their deals with Australia, they set tariff-free allowances in year one that allowed for a modest increase in the amount of beef Australia had exported to them in the previous year—7% for Korea and 10% for Japan. By comparison, the deal the Secretary of State has just signed allows Australia to increase its exports of beef by 6,000% without paying any tariffs. In the Government’s own scoping paper last July we have it in black and white. That increase in Australian exports will mean: “A fall in output and employment” in the UK’s agricultural sector.”
House of Commons17 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“So much for protecting our standards, what about protecting our farming industry? The Secretary of State said last November: “We have no intention of ever striking a deal that doesn’t benefit farmers”. Yet the deal she has just signed will allow Australia’s farm corporations to export more than 60 times the amount of beef next year as they exported to Britain last year before they face a single penny in tariffs. It is the equivalent of immediate, unlimited tariff-free trade, which is why when the Secretary of State says that Australian farmers will be in the same position as EU farmers after 15 years, she is talking nonsense. They will be in exactly the same position from year one, but without the requirement to meet EU standards.”
House of Commons17 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“She called that an important principle, so let me give her just 10 examples of such practices in Australia: allowing slurry to pollute rivers; using growth-promoting antibiotics; housing hens in barren cages; trimming their beaks with hot blades; mulesing young lambs; keeping pregnant pigs in sow stalls; branding cattle with hot irons; dehorning and spaying them without pain relief; and routinely transporting livestock for 48 hours; and doing that without their having rest, food or water. All those practices are in common use in Australia, but banned in Britain. Yet, under the deal she has signed, the meat from farms that use those practices will come into our country tariff-free, undermining British standards, undercutting British farmers and breaking the promises made to the British people.”
House of Commons17 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In doing so, I am not going to hold the Secretary of State to some impossible ideal; I am simply going to hold her to the past commitments she has made to protect our standards and our farming industry. Let us start with standards. She said last October that she would not sign a trade deal that would allow British farmers to be undercut by cheap imports produced using practices that are allowed in other countries but banned in the UK.”
House of Commons17 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement and for publishing the outline agreement at quarter to 1 last night—nothing screams confidence in the deal you have negotiated like slipping it on to your website after midnight. I will not address every element of the deal she has highlighted today. On some, we will have to reserve judgment until we have seen the full treaty text and the economic impact assessment. After all, this was the Secretary of State who agreed a brand new Japan deal that turned out, according to her own figures, to deliver lower benefits for Britain than the one we already had. However, the one area of this deal on which we can reach a verdict now is the terms agreed on agriculture.”
House of Commons17 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Small and medium-sized farms across the country are rightly worried that this weekend’s agreement with Australia and the precedent it will set for future trade deals will not just undermine their business but destroy them. Last November, the Minister of State promised these farmers that the new Trade and Agriculture Commission would mean that “all the National Farmers Unions…will play an active role in assessing trade agreements going forward” —[ Official Report , 17 November 2020; Vol. 684, c. 190.] — and that as a consequence the farming industry’s interests would be “advanced and protected” by the TAC. Does he stand by those statements today?”
House of Commons10 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for that answer but the British farming industry knows the truth: the Trade and Agriculture Commission it was promised to defend the interests of British farmers is not the one advertised by the Government this week, and my question to the Minister of State is simply this: why? What are the Government so scared of? If they are confident that their deal with Australia will benefit British farmers, not undermine them, why do they not have the courage of their convictions and establish the Trade and Agriculture Commission on the basis that farmers were promised last November and let the voice of British farming deliver its verdict on the deal?”
House of Commons10 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On 6 October, the Secretary of State said: “A lot of farmers would consider it unfair if practices that are banned in the UK because of animal welfare reasons are allowed elsewhere and those products are allowed to come in and undercut the standards that our farmers are asked to follow. I agree with that. I think that’s an important principle.” That is what she said, so may I simply ask the Secretary of State whether she still stands by that principle in the context of her proposed deal with Australia?”
House of Commons10 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, but if I may, I will give her a specific example. The practice of mulesing is illegal in Britain but is in common use in Australia, not just in the wool industry, but in meat. Lambs at six weeks old are held down without pain relief and have the skin from their buttocks gouged out to prevent the scar tissue that grows back bearing wool. My simple question to her is this: under her proposed trade deal with Australia, will tariffs be reduced on meat produced on sheep farms that use the practice of mulesing?”
House of Commons10 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, if she will make a statement on the United Kingdom’s proposed tariff offer to the Australian Government on their agricultural exports.”
House of Commons27 May 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Those are the bare minimum changes that we need to mitigate the damage that this rushed and botched negotiation is inevitably going to do, so I hope that the Minister of State will agree to pursue all three of those priorities today.”
House of Commons27 May 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“First, will he put in place a safeguard trigger—which, as I am sure he knows, Australia was willing to accept in its deals with Japan, China and the United States—to protect British farmers against surges in cheap imports? Secondly, will he make it clear that zero tariffs will apply only to Australian products that meet the same standards that British farmers are required to meet on food safety, animal welfare and environmental protections? Thirdly, will he insert a review clause into the deal so that, if its impact is even more negative than was forecast by the Government last year, there is scope both to amend the deal and to learn from it in future trade deals?”
House of Commons27 May 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As an exercise in intellectual honesty, I would just ask all those on the Conservative Benches, in the right-wing think-tanks and on the newspaper comment pages to consider for one second how they would have reacted if it was Brussels that had negotiated this trade deal and sold out Britain’s farmers. They would have been rightly furious, and they should not be any less so when it is their own Government who are doing the selling out. However, what matters now is to try to improve the deal on the table before it is signed in Cornwall. Assuming that it is now too late to remove the offer of zero tariffs, can I ask the Minister of State to pursue three other changes?”
House of Commons27 May 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let me make it clear at the outset that we support a trade deal with Australia that is designed in British interests and will create jobs in our economy and increase our exports and growth. What we cannot support is a deal being rushed through in time for the G7 summit without proper debate or consultation, let alone the advance scrutiny that the Government promised by the Trade and Agriculture Commission. We cannot support a deal on agricultural tariffs that will cost jobs in our farming communities, undercut our food standards, increase our carbon offshoring and open the door to the destruction of our farming industry through further lopsided trade deals.”
House of Commons27 May 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am sure that the Secretary of State will want to join me in thanking Tim Smith and all the members of the Trade and Agriculture Commission for their final report published last month. Can I start by asking her when the Government intend to publish the core set of standards that the commission has called for, setting out the UK’s minimum requirements for tariff reductions when it comes to food safety, the environment and animal welfare?”
House of Commons15 April 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Secretary of State for the answer, but it is vital that when this House comes to examine the upcoming trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand, we are able to judge them against that core set of standards. Can I ask her to make it clear today that there will be no proposed reduction in tariffs as a result of those two agreements for any agricultural products that do not meet Britain’s core standards?”
House of Commons15 April 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) said, there are at least 238 questions that the Secretary of State has to address on the subject of this agreement, and I look forward to receiving her answers soon, but today I want to ask her one simple one: can she guarantee that this Parliament will have as much time to scrutinise the proposed terms of accession to CPTPP before a vote on whether or not to approve them as the Australia, Canada and New Zealand Parliaments had before their respective votes?”
House of Commons15 April 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I cannot see how anyone in this House can read the evidence of those crimes being committed against the Uyghurs and think that a potential trade or investment deal with China can be considered only on its commercial merits and not on the basis of morality. That is surely where we need to draw the line, and that is what the Alton amendment seeks to do. That is why I urge Members from all parts of the House to look into their souls this afternoon, to vote with their conscience and to make clear that this is the line that Britain is not prepared to cross.”
House of Commons22 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Should Britain be willing to sign trade deals with a Government who are engaging in torture, mass detention, slave labour, organ harvesting and non-judicial executions—not on an isolated basis, but on an industrial scale—against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang? Should Britain be willing to sign trade deals with a Government who are separating hundreds of thousands of children from their parents and re-educating them in different languages, religion and history in an attempt to wipe the Uyghur culture off the Chinese map? Should Britain be willing to sign trade deals with a Government who are carrying out the systematic sexual abuse, rape and sterilisation of hundreds of thousands of women in Xinjiang in an attempt to guarantee that this current generation of Uyghur children is the last?”
House of Commons22 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Whether Members in this House decide to support the amendment today should have nothing to do with what party they represent. It should have nothing to do with the long overdue sanctions against Chinese officials announced by the Foreign Secretary earlier today. With all due respect to the Minister for Trade Policy, it should have nothing to do with the points of constitutional precedence that he made in his opening speech. Whether we support the Alton amendment should only come down to the fundamental question, which is one we must all ask ourselves: should Britain be willing to sign trade agreements with Governments who are committing genocide?”
House of Commons22 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“But there is another point of view—I believe it is shared by the majority of people in this country and by the majority of MPs in this House—which is simply this: there is a line that needs to be drawn; there are certain countries whose crimes are so great that they cannot simply be ignored on the basis of commercial self-interest; and Britain as a country must be willing to say no to trade deals with countries that cross that line. The Alton amendment, as advanced today by the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), seeks to draw that line by giving Parliament the power to debate whether Britain should sign any form of bilateral trade or investment deal with a Government held responsible for genocide by our country’s most experienced judges.”
House of Commons22 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“209.] For me, that simple statement of principle goes to the heart of the debate we have had in recent months, and especially in the past week, about human rights and trade. It goes to the heart of the decision that we have to take today on the Alton amendment to the genocide amendment. I know that some people believe that the choices we make as a country on with whom to sign trade deals should be entirely dictated by our commercial interests and that considerations about human rights should be dealt with entirely separately.”
House of Commons22 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“220.] Time and again over the past three years, we have seen that to be the case, as Members from all sides of the House have campaigned together on different issues from farming standards to online harms. It seems fitting, after more than three years, that we should have been left with one final issue to resolve: a cross-party consensus on where we stand as a Parliament and on what we believe as a country will be most important. That relates to the second thing that the former Secretary of State said three years ago, which I believe is equally relevant today. He said that “trade is not only about self-interested commercial gain.” —[ Official Report , 9 January 2018; Vol. 634, c.”
House of Commons22 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“By my calculations, it has been three years, two months and two weeks since this House first debated the Government’s proposed Trade Bill, so if today’s debate proves to be the final one on a long drawn-out Bill, it would be appropriate to thank all Members of both Houses, all the parliamentary Clerks and all the officials in the Department for International Trade who have contributed to its passage. Looking back at the very first day of debate in January 2018, I was struck by two things that were said by the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), the then Secretary of State, which seem very prescient in retrospect. The first was: “Trade is an issue that transcends party politics”. —[ Official Report , 9 January 2018; Vol. 634, c.”
House of Commons22 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The thing that has always concerned me about the hon. Gentleman’s amendment is that it is for Select Committees to make decisions about whether there has been genocide, but the Chairs of the Select Committee who would be the primary candidates have all said that they do not think that they are up to it, that they do not feel that they have sufficient experience, and that it would be the sort of thing that someone with judicial experience would be better able to do.”
House of Commons22 March 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗