(4 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. Britain has played a leading role in both diplomatic and humanitarian aid in Yemen. What more political pressure can we bring to bring about a political solution in Yemen?
My hon. Friend is right that we play a significant role in terms of aid to Yemen—we have provided £770 million-worth—and it is important that we work through the UN, to which the Foreign Secretary is committed, to seek as quickly as possible an end to conflict in Yemen.
(5 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe 40 deals to which the hon. Gentleman refers are, of course, the deals that the EU currently has with partners. Our ambition is to transition those trade deals exactly as they are—or at least as closely as possible—and they contain the current measures.
We not only have really high welfare and hygiene standards, but reduce much antibiotic use by producing good-quality food. Can we be assured that food that does not meet those standards will not come into the country and that those standards will not be frittered away in an agreement on service industries?
I can say to my hon. Friend the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee that we absolutely have that intention. It is very straightforward. When I am abroad, I find on a regular basis, as the Secretary of State has said, that it is the commitment to high standards in the UK market that so motivates consumers to buy our products. Not only is having these high standards the right thing to do, but there is no rational commercial incentive to do otherwise.
My hon. Friend makes a useful point, and we have identified 400,000 businesses that could be exporting but do not because of their fear, or lack of understanding, of the markets to which they would export, and their cultural and regulatory frameworks. That is why we have established the framework of our trade commissioners around the world, and why we have put members of UK Export Finance in those markets, so that they can gain expertise in the financial areas that companies will enter, and will be there to advise companies in those markets.
(6 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am happy to look at the precise nature of the hon. Gentleman’s allegation, but I have to say that the Government’s response on Monarch has been exemplary. We have devoted an incredible amount of resources to getting tens of thousands of stranded British subjects abroad back to this country. The process was led incredibly well by the Department for Transport, and we should be proud of the Government’s efforts in helping the victims of Monarch.
We will take the same approach to New Zealand lamb as we do to all other tariff-rate quotas: allocate them on the basis of usage. As I have already explained, that will keep the market stable and mean that we are not disadvantaging New Zealand exporters or our domestic market. That is not only the fairest thing to do, but the best way to prevent the UK from being taken to dispute at the WTO, which is again to our mutual advantage.