Gulf States: Trade and Human Rights

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

What I am hearing from the noble Lord is that our work here is not yet done. It is a long way from being done, and it is a constantly evolving situation where all of us are raising our own standards—here in the UK but in other countries as well. Where we are able to work together to share ideas, continuously, in every conversation, and to articulate the benefits that those high standards have to our society, where we have trade agreements, that only increases the number of opportunities to articulate and continue to drive that change. I accept that we still have a long way to go and there is still much we could be doing.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister assure the House that in the course of these trade negotiations with the Gulf states the Government will take steps to ensure that the UK’s commitment to a free and independent press is in no way compromised—that includes the press’s ability to report on human rights abuses?

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

I confirm that we hold our standards around human rights, and value our press, incredibly dearly and we would not do anything in a free trade agreement that takes away or dilutes any of those assets that we hold dear within the UK.