YouSaid · the spoken record
Emily Thornberry
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On the record 2005–2026
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“I need to get to it, pick up the statement that has been given to me by the Government, read it, write what I am going to say, make sure that it is only half the length of the statement and then come back. I also want to make reference, of course, to the Trade and Agriculture Commission, which the Government have said is a really important part of any future deal that they negotiate, because of the grave concerns that farmers have about their future business, to which the TAC is supposed to be part of the remedy. We got a written ministerial statement, which I received 20 minutes ago while running back from my office. [ Laughter. ] I got a ministerial statement at six minutes past 10. We have to put all those things together. Although in many ways it is funny, if I was a frontline farmer I would not find this funny at all.”
House of Commons21 October 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Can you advise me how best to deal with the stress levels created by this morning’s timetable? I do not mean to complain—I am a big girl—but, quite frankly, I had departmental questions this morning, we heard on the grapevine that there was going to be a statement on the Trade and Agriculture Commission, for which we have been waiting for more than six months, and we also heard last night that there was going to be a deal with New Zealand. I got a copy of the Government statement on the deal with New Zealand at six minutes past 10 this morning, when I was obviously on my feet dealing with departmental questions here. I do not complain about where my office is, as I have a wonderful office, but it does take quite a long time to get to it.”
House of Commons21 October 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is why it is more vital and more urgent than ever that the new TAC should be able to do the job that the House was promised and act as the voice of the farmer when it comes to passing verdict on these two new deals. I ask the Secretary of State again: will she let the TAC do its job?”
House of Commons21 October 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Members of Parliament, the media, the public and, most of all, our farming communities were repeatedly promised last November that the new TAC would provide Parliament with an assessment of every trade deal for how it would affect the competitiveness of UK farmers and whether it would undercut the standards they are required to meet. No matter how that role was defined in statute, we all know what we were promised. If the new TAC is not going to assess these two trade deals in that way, not only is that utterly shameful, but it will turn the TAC into a total waste of time. I hope the Secretary of State will honour those promises, because if we ever needed a better illustration of why we need the TAC to perform that role, we have it in the deals agreed with New Zealand and Australia.”
House of Commons21 October 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Why has she rejected the recommendation on the use of a standards framework to determine the scope of tariff reductions? Can she confirm that, as a result, a number of products described by DEFRA as “imports of lower welfare” will have their tariffs reduced under the deals with Australia and New Zealand? Can she explain why it is possible to differentiate on standards when it comes to labels placed on imports, but not on the tariffs they face? The second fundamental issue is around the role of the TAC in relation to Australia and New Zealand.”
House of Commons21 October 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The first concerns the TAC’s recommendations to establish a national framework of standards covering food safety, animal welfare and the environment, and to use that framework to determine which imports from Australia and New Zealand should benefit from the elimination of tariffs. We know that that recommendation is entirely feasible and entirely practical, because Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Ministers are currently consulting on applying exactly the same principle when it comes to labelling food products for their impact on animal welfare. Their consultation proposes a clear distinction between “baseline UK welfare regulations which UK farmers are required to meet” and “imports of lower welfare” that are undercutting our farmers. May I ask the Secretary of State three questions?”
House of Commons21 October 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This includes our domestic restrictions on antibiotics, whose production is doing huge damage to the environment. These are bad deals for our farming industry. They will undermine the competitiveness of our farmers and the standards that they are required to maintain. In other words, these deals are exactly what the Trade and Agriculture Commission was established to prevent. That brings me to the appointment of the new TAC members confirmed by the Secretary of State earlier and to the written ministerial statement, which the House has just received, containing her response to the TAC report, seven and a half months after it was submitted. There are two crucial issues at stake in those announcements, and they are inextricably linked to the deals with Australia and New Zealand.”
House of Commons21 October 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In year 1 of this new deal, New Zealand can export four times as much lamb as it did last year before any tariffs kick in; it can export more butter to Britain than it has done in the past six years put together before facing a single tariff; and it can export 25 times more beef, entirely tariff-free, as it can right now with a 20% tariff. For all practical purposes, this deal therefore gives us unlimited, tariff-free trade from New Zealand to go with unlimited, tariff-free trade already agreed with Australia, confirming this as the precedent that every other major exporter will now expect to follow. Not just that, but we are eliminating the tariffs on dozens of products from Australia and New Zealand that fall well short of our domestic welfare standards.”
House of Commons21 October 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. While there is much to digest from last night’s agreement, I hope she will forgive me if, in the short time that I have, I focus on the impact of the deal on our farming communities. As I have already mentioned today, according to the Government’s own forecasts, this deal will lead to reductions in growth and jobs in the UK’s farming sector because, as the scoping paper says: “New Zealand producers may be able to supply UK retailers and UK producers at lower cost relative to domestic producers.” In those circumstances, any other Government would normally keep in place quotas to stop their farmers from being undercut, but, just like with the Australia deal, our Government have set those quotas so high as to be utterly meaningless.”
House of Commons21 October 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That’s the problem.” Can the Paymaster General answer two questions? First, why do the Government believe—”
House of Commons16 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Is the reality that they, like the Government, have no better alternative solution than a veterinary agreement—the solution that businesses want, the solution that the EU says would work, the solution that every Opposition party in this House supports, but the solution that Ministers are refusing to consider? That brings me to my final question—the great unanswered question when it comes to Brexit practicalities, which I hope the Paymaster General will not try to evade as so many of his predecessors have. When Lord Frost was asked on 24 June why he would not pursue the option, even in the short term, of a veterinary agreement with the European Union to resolve many of the problems at the border, he said: “We’re very ambitious about TPP membership, so…it might turn out to be quite short term.”
House of Commons16 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“On that note, may I ask the Paymaster General to clear up one specific mystery, which relates to the Cabinet Office? In March last year, without publicity and without an open consultation, the Cabinet Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs paid McKinsey consultants £1 million for eight weeks’ work to provide “the most effective solutions to ensure food security and choice is maintained for consumers in Northern Ireland” after checks on GB-NI goods were introduced. My question to the Paymaster General is this: if the best brains at McKinsey were given two months and £1 million by the Government to examine that problem and come up with a solution, what is the answer that they provided?”
House of Commons16 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Can the Paymaster General tell us where we stand on the Government’s efforts to secure mutual recognition of professional qualifications and regulatory equivalence for financial services, so that our key growth industries in the professional and financial sectors can get back to doing busines in Europe with the speed and simplicity that they enjoyed before Brexit? Can he tell us where the Government stand in their efforts to seek mutual recognition of conformity assessments to remove the double testing of products that is costing our key industries both time and money? Can he tell us not just what the latest plan is to kick the can down the road in Northern Ireland, but how we are going to reach a sustainable and permanent solution?”
House of Commons16 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will happily debate that strategy with the Paymaster General on another day, but what I want to focus on today, and what I urge him to focus on in the new role he has been given, is not the imagined opportunities of Brexit that might happen in the next year, two years or five years, but the real practicalities that need sorting out today—the holes that need fixing in our deal with Europe to support British businesses through this period of economic recovery and resolve the impasse in Northern Ireland.”
House of Commons16 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I will happily have a debate, too, whenever he wants to have one, on the merits of the Government’s strategy to downgrade trade with Europe in favour of trade with Asia, on the fantastical basis that we can make up all the losses our exporters are facing in their trade with the EU through the gains that we will make through trade with the Asia-Pacific. The flagship policy of that strategy is the UK’s accession to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which, according to the Government’s own figures, will produce a £1.7 billion increase in UK exports to those Asia-Pacific countries over a 15-year period. That is roughly a third of what we exported to Luxembourg last year alone—the covid-affected year.”
House of Commons16 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Into all that, along comes the new Paymaster General to talk about all the wonderful opportunities that await us because of the marvellous Brexit deal, which is working so well at present. If he will excuse the unkind metaphor on the first day of his new job, it is a bit like the Pudding Lane baker strolling around the great fire of London asking people running for their lives if they have any orders for Christmas. On the issue of opportunities, I will happily have a debate with the Paymaster General, whenever he wants to have one, about how the Government are wasting the opportunities of Brexit when it comes to the lack of ambition and innovation in both the roll-over trade deals they agreed last year and the new negotiations that they have begun since.”
House of Commons16 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There was also reference in the statement to GMOs, research and development, vehicle standards and artificial intelligence, and all kinds of other things may be hidden in the huge category of law that has yet to be reviewed. We will come back to this, I have no doubt. Let me return to the title of the statement: “Brexit: Opportunities”. That is the title, yet the country faces continuing shortages of staff and supplies, exacerbated by the Government’s Brexit deal, while businesses across the country face mounting losses in trade with Europe directly caused by the Government’s Brexit deal, and the people of Northern Ireland remain stuck in limbo as the Government refuse to implement the Brexit deal that they negotiated.”
House of Commons16 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let me begin by welcoming the Paymaster General to his new role. I thank him for advance sight of his statement. In fact, I imagine he had about as much advance sight of it as I did—11.40? However, I sympathise with him, not just for being thrown into this particular deep end, but for the title that was given to him for today’s statement. Before I go into that, let me say that the proposals that the Paymaster General has mentioned will demand careful consideration once we have been able to examine the detail. For example, he mentioned the recent Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport proposals for reform of the data regime. If they are anything to go by, every measure in that package will need to be carefully considered, not just on its own merits but for the implications for our trading relationship with Europe.”
House of Commons16 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I urge the Paymaster General, in his first appearance in his new position, to come out of the fantasy world that his predecessors have been living in together with Lord Frost and join us in the real world, together with Britain’s business community—the world of delays and shortages, red tape and bureaucracy, lost business and lost trade. It is a world that demands sensible answers and practical action from the Cabinet Office, not just another Minister addicted to dogma and wishful thinking.”
House of Commons16 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The questions I want to ask are these. First, why do the Government believe that signing a veterinary agreement with the EU is incompatible with their ambitions to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership? Secondly, if the answer is that joining the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership requires them to diverge from EU standards in relation to food safety, which is the only logical explanation for the comments that Lord Frost has made, can the Paymaster General tell us which specific standards they plan to diverge from?”
House of Commons16 September 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I hope that the Secretary of State has had a productive visit to the United States. She will have seen the example set by the Biden Administration when it comes to taking concrete action against the use of slave labour and the abuse of workers’ rights in countries ranging from Malaysia to Mexico. By contrast, may I ask her to name a country—one will do—with which the UK has a trade deal where she has taken any action of any kind to enforce the rights of workers?”
House of Commons15 July 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The shocking reality is that more than a third of our non-EU deals have been with countries where workers’ rights are systematically denied or violated, and in not a single case has the Secretary of State done anything about it. That is not good enough when slave labour is on the rise around the world and it is women, children, migrants and minorities who are too often the victims. Will she take a lesson from the Biden Administration, stop turning a blind eye to the abuse of workers’ rights by our own trade partners and start taking action against them instead?”
House of Commons15 July 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We all welcome the prospect of an enhanced trade deal with Israel, and I congratulate the Secretary of State on her efforts to secure it. Among the many improvements that we hope the new deal delivers, will she guarantee to remove the clause mistakenly included in the 2019 UK-Israel agreement that prohibits manufacturers in UK freeports from sharing in the benefits of that deal? Can she tell us when we can expect revised deals with the 20 other countries, including Switzerland and Singapore, where the same freeport blunder still applies?”
House of Commons15 July 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Government are doing none of those things.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let me just say, on behalf of all the Labour MPs who spoke in that debate and the steel communities they represent, that I hope the Secretary of State was watching and that in the six days we have left before our steel safeguards expire, she will listen to reason, accept that she has been wrong, and take emergency action to keep our steel safeguards before it is too late.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Secretary of State for holding this debate. I do, however, feel obliged to point out that she has brought us here today to discuss Britain’s accession to an agreement which, as things stand, and according to the Government’s own figures, will add a maximum of 0.017% to UK GDP, yet on Monday, when the House discussed the urgent threat to the British steel industry, which is worth six times that amount to our GDP and has 34,000 jobs directly at stake, the Secretary of State could not even be bothered to turn up.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That weak acceptance from the Government that we cannot change the CPTPP rules is deeply worrying when it comes to protecting our NHS, our food standards and other defensive concerns. It is also deeply frustrating when it comes to promoting the interests of British business and the adoption of British standards in the trans-Pacific region. Why are the Government not using the accession process to press for improvements to the current provisions on financial services, small businesses and mutual recognition of qualifications? Why is the Secretary of State not arguing for new chapters to cover educational exports, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and co-operation on new technology? Why are the Government not seeking to strengthen the agreement when it comes to protection of labour rights, animal welfare and the environment?”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is not one single clause in the thousands of pages that make up the agreement where the Government will seek any exemptions or amendments to reflect Britain’s interests. That is the literal definition of being rule takers and not rule makers. Even when the Government make a veiled reference in their document to the prospect of China joining the CPTPP, the best they can offer in response is the assertion: “We would only ever support applicants who meet CPTPP’s high standards on rules-based free and fair trade.” In other words, they have no opinion of their own on whether a back-door deal with China is an acceptable prospect for Britain, and no concerns at all about the Uyghurs, slave labour or genocide. All they can say instead is that China will have to obey the same trade rules as us.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Secretary of State will recognise my first quote, because it was said directly to her last July when she was discussing the CPTPP with the former Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. “The UK,” he told her, “is going to have to identify what are its offensive interests and what are its defensive red flags…You can seek tailor-made provisions,” but “the other countries are going to have a…take-it-or-leave-it approach…That is a big decision for the UK.” It is indeed a big decision, but before the negotiations have even begun, the Secretary of State has apparently conceded defeat. Indeed, reading the Government’s so-called negotiating objectives, this appears to be the only negotiation in British history in which the objective is to accept everything the other side wants as quickly as possible, with not one single demand of our own.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend is quite right. I recommend that the Secretary of State read the speeches of many Members in that last debate. I have to say that it reminds me of reading, in March, the Department for International Trade’s report “Global Britain, local jobs”, in which it purported to tell us how many jobs in each region and constituency were dependent on trade. It did not mention any jobs in steel or agriculture. I thought at the time that that was a mistake, but I fear that actually it looks more like a forecast. We ought, perhaps, to turn to the CPTPP. I have three key quotes to put to the Secretary of State from esteemed figures in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, all of which I hope will illuminate what is actually going on in the accession process—certainly rather more than the Government have to date.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but it is palpable nonsense. We can have whatever standards we want in our own country, but if we are allowing those standards to be undermined by cheap imports that are made to different standards, we are essentially saying to our producers or our farmers, “You can keep our standards and you can go out of business.” Frankly, every other country in the world negotiates trade agreements in the interests of that country, but at the moment this country seems to be negotiating trade agreements in order to prove a political point, and that political point is that Brexit works. Frankly, I think that we should be putting our country’s interests first and foremost, rather than petty point-scoring. This is very dangerous behaviour.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There it is: the man the Secretary of State threatened with an uncomfortable chair ended up holding her over a barrel. Let us look at the consequences. As the price for UK access to the CPTPP and the 0.017% that will be added to GDP, the Secretary of State was willing to accept every single demand from Australia when it came to tariff-free, quota-free access for their cheap and cruelly produced meat.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My hon. Friend makes a good point that Ministers should remember a little more actively. The Government are joining the agreement with no ambition to improve its deficiencies, no attempt to deal with its threats and no effort to make it work in Britain’s interests. The trouble is that, when someone goes into a negotiation looking as if they are willing to accept anything in the deal, they come across to the other party as if they will do anything to get it. That brings me to the second quote, by the Secretary of State’s Australian counterpart, Dan Tehan. He said of the recent negotiations: “We’ve been very clear with the UK that… they’ll need a gold standard FTA with us if they’re going to have a realistic chance of joining the CPTPP” because “We have a very large say in what accession looks like”.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister says, “Oh! Oh!” Does he know what mulesing is? I suggest that he finds out, then looks us in the eye and tells us whether there are cruel practices in Australia. No wonder Dan Tehan said that the Austalian National Farmers Federation was “over the moon” when he told them about the deal he had struck, while farmers up and down Britain curse it as a betrayal. Kit Papworth is the director of a farm business in Norfolk—perhaps he is a constituent of the Secretary of State’s. He said: “The deal is an absolute dereliction of everything that farmers have been promised… It is farmers being sold down the river once again… while agriculture… is being left… to die.””
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is absolutely right. I saw an article in The Daily Telegraph this week by Jeremy Warner, which said, “It is vitally important that FTAs are pursued in a transparent and accountable manner that takes fully on board the interests, fears and concerns of domestic constituencies and affected sectors. The battle for free trade needs to be won as much at home as abroad.” That is why we need to know whether we will get a proper debate and votes in this place. The Secretary of State has said nothing about whether Parliament will get a vote either on the negotiating objectives or on a deal at the end of the day.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is why, while the Labour party remains committed to the possibilities that joining the CPTPP offers, we will continue to demand a fresh approach to the accession process, starting with proper protection for our farmers and food standards, total exemption from the provisions on ISDS, and a complete carve-out for our national health service, patient data included.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I respectfully say to the Secretary of State that we have had enough of the Government’s assurances when it comes to negotiations on trade, the Northern Ireland protocol, non-tariff barriers with Europe, and the betrayal of our fishing industry, our farming industry and our steel industry. We have had enough of being told by them just to take their word for it and everything will turn out fine and all our interests will be protected. The reason this matters so much is because it is this Secretary of State who stands personally accused of saying one thing to the British farming industry and another for the sake of CPTPP. If she is willing to break her promises to the farming community that she represents, why would not she do the same to the health service on which we all depend?”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have the same assurances with respect to food safety, online harms, patent laws, procurement rules, data protection, medicine prices, intellectual property and our NHS, and that is all without mentioning the 22 suspended provisions in the agreement, which the strategy document simply ignores. We are simply told that none of those provisions will be a problem for the UK and that we should trust the Government—we should trust the Government to protect our interests, even though they cannot tell us how. Instead of exemptions, we are reliant on assertions. Instead of amendments they offer us assurances.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“So when it comes to CPTPP, why are the Government not simply following New Zealand’s lead and demanding an exemption from the provisions on ISDS? Again, it goes back to the big decision taken by the Secretary of State that what matters most is not minimising the risks of this deal, maximising the opportunities and making it right for Britain, but simply getting it done as quickly as possible, even if that means selling out our farming industry and exposing our country to the risks of ISDS. It is apparently okay, though, because in respect of all of those risks the Government simply assert that we have nothing to fear.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When she inherited the CPTPP negotiations at the last minute in 2017, the new New Zealand Prime Minister was willing to jeopardise the entire process to demand that New Zealand be exempted from the provisions on investor-state dispute settlement. She did not want the threat of lawsuits in the name of wealthy foreign corporations restricting her ability to introduce policies for the protection of consumers, workers, the environment and public health policy. For the same reason, we have had no IDS—or, rather, ISDS— [Interruption.] Well, it was a Freudian slip. That is why we have had no ISDS provisions in any of the post-Brexit trade agreements signed by the Government with 67 non-EU countries, with the European Union and with Australia.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No. Let us move on to New Zealand and Canada. Having seen what has happened with Australia, they will surely demand the same deal for their farmers as the price of support for UK accession to CPTPP. Handshake by handshake, the future of British farming will be sold. The threat to our country’s interests lies not just in what the Secretary of State is willing to do, or in the interests that she is willing to sacrifice as the price of admission to the agreement, but in what will happen once we are in the door. That brings me to my next quote, which is typically pithy and to the point, from New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. She said that investor-state dispute settlement “is a dog”.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am about to finish so I will not give way again. I was talking about the importance of negotiating a deal where there would be specific demands and where there would be carve-outs. All those things may take more time than the Secretary of State would like and it may be a harder negotiation than those she is used to, but none of that should matter when what we are trying to do is get what is best for Britain.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, who is making a very interesting speech. Can I just ask him to look again at page 65 of the document? He cited the figure as 0.08%, but it is much lower, because the 0.08% includes Malaysia joining, and Malaysia has made it perfectly clear that it is very much having cold feet because of the ISDS provisions.”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The points that the hon. Gentleman is making are very important, and Government Members ought to listen to them carefully. Quite a lot has been made of the statistic of a 65% increase in trade projected for this region by 2030, but on close examination of the document, is it not right that that projected increase in trade is one that Government figures show would happen irrespective of whether the UK joins the CPTPP?”
House of Commons24 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If anyone were wondering how the TRA can possibly have come to the conclusions that it has when it comes to maintaining Britain’s steel safeguards, the answer is that the men in charge are simply doing what they were appointed to do by the Secretary of State.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In their joint interview with the Financial Times , they explained that, under their leadership, the TRA would always seek to set the lowest safeguards possible, deliberately lower than any EU equivalent, and that this approach would be quite distinct from countries “which impose swingeing tariffs to protect particular industries.” They boasted that the TRA had already scrapped more than 50 of the safeguard tariffs carried over from the European Union, and that they intended to consider only around four cases per year where new safeguards might be required, which is a quarter of the amount being pursued each year by Brussels. They concluded that the TRA was “suited to a buccaneering global Britain” that would favour free trade over the protection of domestic industries.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
““No wonder”, I said 13 months ago, “there are such concerns and suspicions that the Government’s true agenda for the TRA is not to defend Britain against underpriced imports, but somehow to balance the damage they do to domestic producers against the perceived benefits for domestic consumers.” I said back then: “That is not the job of the trade remedies authority.” —[ Official Report , 20 May 2020; Vol. 676, c. 616.] I stand by that statement, even more today now that we have seen this new body in action. If we were in any doubt about the misguided sense of mission that is driving the TRA, we had all the confirmation that we needed last week from the new chair and the new chief executive, who were personally selected by the Secretary of State from the senior ranks of the Department for International Trade.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friends the Members for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) and for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) warned the Government consistently during the first attempted passage of the Trade Bill that their vision for the new TRA was misguided. Exactly 13 months ago, when the Trade Bill returned for a second time, I stood at this Dispatch Box and followed their previous lead, describing the TRA as “a vital body with a vital task” but one that was not representative of the business and workers that it was being set up to defend.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In her absence, I am going to use my opening remarks to look through each of the three issues I mentioned in turn—first, the role of the Trade Remedies Authority; secondly, the powers of the Secretary of State; and, thirdly, the decisions she now has to take—and try to develop a consensus in this House not just in support of this vital motion, but on how the Secretary of State should approach the crucial days ahead. Let me start with the role of the Trade Remedies Authority and the reason for its flawed recommendations. There is nothing worse, in life or politics, than people being wise after the event, but in respect of the Trade Remedies Authority it is very much a case of predictions coming to pass. Four years ago, my hon.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Most fundamentally of all, it is her general approach to trade policy and her specific attitude towards the future of the steel industry in Britain that is crucial in determining the final decision that is taken on the retention of these safeguards. If it were me standing in the Secretary of State’s position, I would want to be here this evening to listen to what the representatives of Britain’s steel communities have to say, particularly as some of those representatives are sitting on her own Back Benches.”
House of Commons21 June 2021Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗