Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether Simon Blagden's status as a Conservative Party donor was taken into account as part of the appointment process for his roles at (a) Building Digital UK, (b) UK Health Security Agency and (c) the Trade Advisory Group for telecoms and technology.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
For all appointments, a declaration of interests is recorded and due diligence conducted on appointees. These appointments will have been decided on the individual’s experience against the essential criteria for the role.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether Simon Blagden's role at Fujitsu UK was taken in account as part of the appointment process for his roles at (a) Building Digital UK, (b) UK Health Security Agency and (c) the Trade Advisory Group on telecoms and technology.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
For all appointments, a declaration of interests is recorded and due diligence conducted on appointees. These appointments will have been decided on the individual’s experience against the essential criteria for the role.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps she plans to take with Cabinet colleagues to facilitate parliamentary scrutiny of trade deals with the US; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
In June the Prime Minister and the President of the United States announced the Atlantic Declaration and accompanying Action Plan to cover the full spectrum of our economic, technological, commercial and trade relations, and to explore further ways to expand our bilateral trade.
Negotiations remain at an early stage and it is not clear what form agreement will take but we remain committed to effective and proportionate scrutiny of our trade negotiations and will ensure Parliament has the information it needs to scrutinise outcomes.
We will continue to update Parliament as our work on US trade develops.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to her Department's publication entitled UK-Canada Free Trade Agreement: The UK’s Strategic Approach, published 24 March 2022, for what reason does the UK's strategic approach (a) include an ambition to ensure the agreement does not contain an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism and (b) not commit to disapply such a mechanism with Canada as part of the UK’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
The UK will not be seeking to negotiate an investor state dispute mechanism (ISDS) in the UK-Canada FTA and will instead seek to consider alternative options for investment dispute resolution that are best suited to the bilateral relationship between the UK and Canada.
In seeking accession to CPTPP, the UK committed to the agreement’s existing standards, including its provisions on investor protections backed by a modern and transparent ISDS mechanism. These features balance the need to protect UK investors accessing and operating in CPTPP markets and ensure that the Government can regulate in the public interest.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether her Department sought a side letter similar to those agreed with the Governments of Australia and New Zealand to disapply investor–state dispute settlement provisions under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership during accession negotiations.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
In seeking accession to CPTPP, the UK committed to the existing standards of this agreement, including its provisions on investor protections backed by a modern and transparent investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism. These features balance the need to protect UK investors accessing and operating in CPTPP markets and to ensure that the Government can regulate in the public interest. In light of our investment relationship with Australia and New Zealand, we agreed side letters confirming that it was not necessary to have ISDS provisions between our countries in CPTPP.