Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

Yes, there will be. The trade White Paper, which is of course very separate from the Trade Bill, asked for views on what a future engagement and scrutiny framework should look like on trade. We are considering the responses and we will engage in the coming months. Given the changes we see, with Pascal Lamy describing a move away from the protection of producers to consumer precaution, we will have to take the views of consumers far more into account in future trade agreements than we have in the past.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

When I was a little boy, my grandmother used to say, “Shame the devil and tell the truth.” When will this Secretary of State tell the truth? He has been, with his colleagues, going around the world begging for a trade deal and everyone is telling him, “We want to trade with the European Union, a much bigger trading group.”

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Just to be absolutely clear, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not suggest that the Secretary of State would ever tell an untruth in this House.

[Mr Sheerman]

Absolutely not, and I did not mean to imply that he would. I thought the House would like to know what my grandmother used to say to me about the importance of veracity.

[Mr Speaker]

No further explanation is required. We are immensely interested in the hon. Gentleman’s grandmother, and his ruminations on that matter will doubtless be found in his memoirs, which will be deposited in the Library and we can consult in the long winter evenings that lie ahead.