Trade Bill (Sixth sitting)

Bill Esterson Excerpts

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th January 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Greg Hands]

Right.

[Bill Esterson]

He didn’t tell you?

[Greg Hands]

No.

Mr Davies, I would like to start by stressing that the Government recognise the important role of making sure—that you are in the right place at the right time. [Laughter.]

I will respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford because he raised some incredibly strong points. Free trade is not trade without rules, as the Secretary of State outlined on Second Reading. It is vital for us to have the ability to conduct and operate trade remedies. That is the position we need to be in. I am therefore doubly if not triply surprised that the Opposition voted against creating this body on Second Reading.

My hon. Friend outlined—I know that we will come on to debate some of this when we consider the amendments—some of the key parameters that we want in the Trade Remedies Authority, in that it needs to have regard to a wide variety of stakes and interests in this whole process: businesses, workforces, consumers and so on. We need to make sure that our regime is robust in this space.

It is also important for the message we send abroad, because Members know that free trade has been questioned by more and more countries over the last five to 10 years. Many countries are looking at what the UK does generally in trade policy—and that includes trade remedies—to show that we are committed free traders. People are looking forward to the UK rectifying its own schedules at the World Trade Organisation as we retain and regain our independent voice there to make these points. Trade remedies are a vital part of that and it would be folly for the UK not to have a proper arm’s length trade remedies authority that can do this.

As for my hon. Friend’s points on efficiency and promptness, regarding some of the detail of the Trade Remedies Authority’s operations, I advise him to have a look at what is going on with the Taxation (Cross-Border Trade) Bill, which incorporates a lot of the day-to-day workings of the Trade Remedies Authority and is being debated as we speak in another room. Most of all, regarding his important points about the independence and arm’s length nature of this body, it is incredibly important to ensure that we have specialists on it who can withstand pressures, non-executives appointed on merit and not representing sectional interests. We need to make sure that our Trade Remedies Authority members can consider UK-wide issues, but also regional issues at the same time, without being beholden to a particular sector or region. Our objective is therefore to have an independent, evidence-based approach to trade remedies.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 4

The Trade Remedies Authority

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 21, in schedule 4, page 14, line 24, leave out line 34 and insert—

“(a) a member to chair it, appointed by the Secretary of State with the consent of the International Trade Committee of the House of Commons,”.

This would establish the requirement for Parliament, through the relevant committee, to give its consent to the Secretary of State’s recommendation for appointment to the Chair of the Trade Remedies Authority.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 39, in schedule 4, page 14, line 34, at end insert

“with the consent of each devolved authority,”.

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to secure the consent of each devolved authority before appointing the Chair of the TRA.

Amendment 38, in schedule 4, page 14, line 34, at end insert—

“(aa) a non-executive member appointed by the Secretary of State with the consent of the Scottish Ministers,

(ab) a non-executive member appointed by the Secretary of State with the consent of the Welsh Ministers,”.

This amendment would require UK Ministers to secure the consent of the Scottish Ministers and Welsh Ministers to one non-executive member each of the Trade Remedies Authority.

Amendment 22, in schedule 4, page 15, line 2, leave out subsection (3) and insert—

“(3) No person may be appointed as a non-executive member of the Authority under subparagraph (1)(b) unless—

(a) the Secretary of State has first consulted the Chair of the Authority on the proposed appointment, and

(b) the International Trade Committee of the House of Commons has consented to the appointment.”

This would establish a procedure for appointing non-executive members of the Trade Remedies Authority other than the Chair.

Amendment 23, in schedule 4, page 15, line 3, at end insert

“(3A) In making any proposal under subparagraph (3), the Secretary of State must ensure that there is on the Authority a representative of —

(a) producers,

(b) trade unions, and

(c) each of the United Kingdom devolved administrations.”

This would ensure that the Trade Remedies Authority must include, among its non-executive members, representatives of stakeholder bodies potentially affected by its recommendations.

Amendment 40, in schedule 4, page 16, line 20, after “may” insert

“, with the consent of each devolved authority,”.

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to secure the consent of each devolved authority before removing a person from office as the chief executive of the TRA.

Amendment 41, in schedule 4, page 17, line 27, at end insert—

“Offices

25A The TRA shall maintain offices in—

(a) Scotland,

(b) Wales, and

(c) Northern Ireland.”

This amendment would require that the TRA shall maintain offices in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

[Bill Esterson]

It is interesting that the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford chose to speak in the clause 5 stand part debate, because many of the points he made relate to amendments 21, 22 and 23, which I now speak to on behalf of myself and my hon. Friends. During his interesting and thoughtful speech, he made very strong arguments in favour of each of our amendments. He spoke of the need to be evidence-based and objective, which would be much easier achieved by the balanced membership proposed by our amendments. Equally, he spoke of the need for a broad-based membership—I agree. He also made the argument for balancing the different interests that are involved in delivering trade remedies and an effective Trade Remedies Authority. I will be interested to see how he votes, given that he made the case for supporting each of our three amendments.

As ever, the Minister reminds us of the vote on Second Reading. He neglected to say that in our reasoned amendment we called for the need for effective legislation to implement the establishment of a Trade Remedies Authority to deliver the new UK trade remedies framework. We voted for that, and he voted against it. If he wants to tell me why he voted against an amendment that called for the establishment of a Trade Remedies Authority to deliver the new UK trade remedies framework, he can do so now.

[Greg Hands]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to do so. We all know that the usual purpose of a reasoned amendment is that it allows an Opposition party to put forward a point of view about a Bill while nevertheless still allowing it not to oppose the Bill itself. That is the standard way in which reasoned amendments operate. We were simply amazed that once his reasoned amendment fell he nevertheless opposed the Bill. That shows that he opposes the continuity of these trade agreements, the creation of a Trade Remedies Authority, and data-sharing powers that will help our exporters. I am afraid that that is on the record from his vote on Second Reading.

[Bill Esterson]

I am glad that the Minister has confirmed that we voted to support the creation of a Trade Remedies Authority and that he voted against it. I think that was very clear in that lengthy intervention.

As the explanatory statements make clear, amendments 21, 22 and 23 would have the effect of giving Parliament the power of consent over the appointment of a chair to the Trade Remedies Authority set up by the Bill. They would establish a procedure for the appointment of non-executive members to the authority, and ensure that the TRA includes representatives of key stakeholder bodies among its non-executive membership—all things that the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford requested.

[Mr Prisk]

I actually said that the non-executive members need not to be beholden to a sectional interest and they need to be able to make a corporate decision. My worry is that amendment 23 does precisely the former. There are some 5.3 million people in the west midlands and some 5.6 million in Scotland. Presumably, according to the logic with which the hon. Gentleman has drafted the amendment, we should also have somebody from the west midlands. I am sure that people from Yorkshire would then like to have someone from Yorkshire. My concern is that ultimately we will end up with one person representing not the broad picture, but a sectional interest. I am very happy to have people who have links and connections to those areas, but to appoint them on the basis of where they come from or to represent one sectional interest would be wrong. Merit should win.

[Bill Esterson]

Perhaps the appointment of the non-executives can cover all those areas.

Trade remedies and the Trade Remedies Authority are a key element of our trade policy. Gareth Stace of UK Steel told us in one evidence session that

“If we get this very wrong, we become the dumping ground—not just in Europe, but for the rest of the world.”–––[Official Report, Trade Public Bill Committee, 23 January 2018; c. 66, Q127.]

It is therefore essential that we get it right, and the Bill is our opportunity to do that. The Government have spent the past few days in Committee trying to convince us that the Bill is a technical little Bill that is not trying to do much other than put in place necessary frameworks. On the Trade Remedies Authority in particular, they have gone to great pains to stress that they are simply setting up the necessary structures to carry out our trade defence once we have left the European Union. This much is true: the Trade Bill does set up the Trade Remedies Authority, which will be a key component of our trade policy once we leave the European Union, when we have to carry out our own trade remedies.

[Hannah Bardell]

rose—

[Faisal Rashid]

rose—

[Bill Esterson]

I am spoiled for choice. I will give way to the hon. Lady.

[Hannah Bardell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way—that was a clash of interventions and I am glad to have won the battle. I absolutely agree with him. Does he agree with me that, although none of us, unfortunately, has tabled the amendment that has just occurred to me, the authority should reflect the gender balance of society? Perhaps there should be a gender balance mechanism, as it will be a public body.

[Bill Esterson]

It is really important that we take on the challenge set by the hon. Lady and apply it to all public bodies. How we achieve such a gender balance is perhaps a question for wider discussion, but her point is well made. The Minister might achieve the balance she suggests when he creates the authority.

[Faisal Rashid]

The role of Parliament in overseeing the creation of the Trade Remedies Authority was described to the Committee as “critical” by Chris Southworth of the International Chamber of Commerce. Does my hon. Friend share my concerns that if the Government do not support the amendment, they are clearly choosing to ignore the voice of the ICC? Does he also share my concerns about the repercussions that that might have for the future of UK trade?

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent intervention, as he has done throughout Committee. That body has to carry the confidence of all sides of industry and all parts of society and of the United Kingdom. It is crucial that it does so, which is why we are attempting to push the amendments through. I imagine, from what the Minister has said, that he is unlikely to support us—why change the habit? Perhaps, however, he will explain how those points will be addressed and how the Government will respond to the witnesses mentioned by my hon. Friend, as well as some of the other witnesses.

The Minister is not letting on that trade remedies are not simply a technical detail of trade policy. They have the potential to be highly political. In essence, trade remedies defend domestic producers from unfair competition from dumped goods from other countries. The remedies are an essential policy tool to correct multilateral distortions, as Mr Stevenson, the specialist adviser to the Manufacturing Trade Remedies Alliance told us last week. Deciding when and how to use such trade defence instruments, however, is a political decision, and a highly political one at that, as is that on the membership of the TRA. It is crucial to get the membership right, to ensure that the TRA makes correct, balanced and evidence-based recommendations—as the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford put it—to Government.

As the system is to operate under this Bill and the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill, the Secretary of State has the capacity to use an economic interest test to allow the Government not to take action even when problematic trade behaviour by another country has been identified. In other words, the Government will have the capacity to decide that even when harm is being done to our domestic industries, other interests such as the consumer interest may outweigh those of the producers affected. To quote the words of George Peretz, QC, who we heard from last week:

“That seems to me to be a political position: it is balancing the interests of jobs in a particular area of the country against the interests of consumers across the country”.––[Official Report, Trade Public Bill Committee, 23 January 2018; c. 55, Q105.]

The same point was made on Second Reading by a number of hon. Members, including about the Scotch whisky and steel sectors.

The Minister cannot pretend that the Bill and the structures created by it are apolitical and purely technocratic. Trade remedies can make the difference between the survival of an industry and its decimation. They can protect thousands of jobs or let them be exported overseas. They can defend our foundation industries or let them fall by the wayside. I am sure the constituents of the hon. Member for Corby can attest to that.

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

That’s why I voted to set it up.

[Bill Esterson]

The hon. Gentleman comments from a sedentary positon; perhaps he is allowed to do that.

[Alan Brown]

I just want to respond to the comments made by the hon. Member for Corby from a sedentary position. It is ironic that he is saying yet again that we should have voted for the Bill on Second Reading and then tabled amendments, even though the Government have voted against every single amendment.

[Bill Esterson]

The hon. Gentleman is of course right. I remind the hon. Member for Corby and his colleagues that he and they all voted against our reasoned amendment, which called for the setting up of the Trade Remedies Authority.

Trade remedies are absolutely essential in order to protect British industries, including the steel sector, ceramics, tyres, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. As Gareth Stace of UK Steel told us,

“Trade remedies...are the safety valve that enables free trade to take place.”––[Official Report, Trade Public Bill Committee, 23 January 2018; c. 66, Q127.]

One need only look at the steel sector to understand why trade remedies are necessary and also how incredibly political they can be.

As the steel crisis highlighted, when no trade remedies are put in place to defend our steel industry against dumping from countries such as China, thousands of jobs are lost and entire communities are negatively affected. We were reminded of that at BEIS questions earlier today, when my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) raised the ongoing devastating impact on the community and workers who lost their jobs at SSI. She spoke of the continuing struggle to replace their jobs and to create prosperous alternatives for her constituents. So far, that has not been resolved.

During the steel crisis the Conservative Government under David Cameron acted as the ringleader of a group of countries in Europe trying to block efforts at the European Council to put in place more rigorous anti-dumping measures against China by lifting the lesser duty rule. British steel was going through an existential crisis and the Conservative Government did not use all the policy tools available to them to restore a level playing field. The EU ended up imposing tariffs on unfairly traded steel, but they were much lower than those imposed by other countries such as Australia and the USA.

Now that we are leaving the European Union the Government have rightly set out to create an independent trade remedy regime, yet they seem to not have left their bad habits behind. They still envisage having a lesser duty rule in place. On top of that, they have introduced an economic interest test in the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill. Once again British producers do not make it to the top of the list of concerns for the Secretary of State and Ministers. They seem to want to champion only consumer interests. That is why we believe it is important that Parliament has a say in the appointments to the Trade Remedies Authority and why we believe non-executive members of the TRA should include representatives of producers and trade unions from each of the devolved Administrations. There needs to be an in-built system of checks and balances so that all interests are taken into consideration and all voices are heard. As Mr Southworth from the International Chambers of Commerce said on Tuesday last week, issues such as steel dumping have

“huge implications for a lot of people, particularly in geographies that tend to be vulnerable...It is important that everyone has a chance to have their say about what that decision should be.”––[Official Report, Trade Public Bill Committee, 23 January 2018; c. 26, Q57.]

Even in the short time that the Department for International Trade has been in existence, its track record on being inclusive and mindful of the input of stakeholders has not been ideal. The consultation on the Trade Remedies Authority ended on the evening of 6 November. By early morning on the 7th, the Trade Bill had been published and delivered to Parliament. James Ashton-Bell of the CBI diplomatically said that

“the optics were not ideal.”––[Official Report, Trade Public Bill Committee, 23 January 2018; c. 34, Q79.]

What a disgrace. Why did the Government bother to have a consultation when they clearly had no intention of reading the responses, let alone taking on board the suggestions? That is a clear breach of the consultation principles issued to all Departments in 2016.

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[Greg Hands]

I have a quick question: does the hon. Gentleman agree with his party leader that free trade itself is a dogma?

[Bill Esterson]

I think we should press on. The Minister has enough to worry about.

As Mr Stevenson of the Manufacturing Trade Remedies Alliance told us last week:

“Some see trade remedies as purely protectionist and would abolish them completely”.––[Official Report, Trade Public Bill Committee, 23 January 2018; c. 65, Q124.]

It is key, therefore, that Parliament, through its relevant Committee, should get to scrutinise who the Secretary of State appoints as the head of the relevant body, and that it should make sure it is someone with the competence, experience and disposition to stand up for the best interests of British industries and the British people.

Similarly, amendment 22 would ensure that the Secretary of State cannot appoint non-executive members to the TRA at his whim and fancy. He should not be able to stack the TRA with members of a certain political and ideological persuasion that would mean they would be less likely to act on complaints brought forward and less likely to recommend measures. We heard from Mr Stevenson of the MTRA last week that if all its members

“thought trade remedies were protectionist, we would never get any trade remedies through”.––[Official Report, Trade Public Bill Committee, 23 January 2018; c. 65, Q124.]

Parliamentary scrutiny of the membership of the TRA is even more important in the light of the evidence given to this committee by Mr Tom Reynolds of the British Ceramic Confederation. He highlighted to us at column 67 that, within the context of our membership of the European Union, the UK Government took on the role of the “liberal counterweight” opposing strong trade defence measures. However, now that we will not have the other 27 member states, of which a majority is for trade remedies, we cannot afford to take the same approach.

Unfortunately, according to Mr Reynolds, UK civil servants and experts are “steeped in that heritage” of the UK being a neo-liberal counterweight. We cannot afford to let that institutional memory dictate how our independent trade defence policy is conducted. We need to ensure that the non-executive board of the TRA is a watchdog that ensures balance in the system. The only way to do that is to allow this House, through the appropriate Committee, to have a say on the appointment of the board members.

Finally and most importantly, amendment 23 would ensure that the TRA includes among its non-executive members representatives of stakeholder bodies potentially affected by the recommendations of the TRA. Those stakeholders are the producers, the trade unions representing the workers and a representative of each of the devolved Administrations. We have put that into our amendment because we believe that the key stakeholders affected by unfair trading practices should be represented around the table where decisions are being made that affect the survival of their industries and jobs, and the wellbeing of their communities. The TRA will only be enriched by experts from industry, trade unions and the devolved Administrations, who are the ones facing the realities of dumping on a day-to-day basis and close to home.

[Matt Western]

Does my hon. Friend have a view on the recent situation with Bombardier and the involvement of the US trade body that found in its favour? Are there any learnings from that? I am specifically interested in the role of the unions on that body, as well as industry representatives.

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend is right to raise that. The Bombardier experience shows that countries are prepared to apply very significant trade remedies. We have to be realistic. We need to be in a position to have our own trade remedies system, be prepared to use them and not expect that not using such processes is always appropriate. That is why we must have the right membership, including from the trade unions, to protect jobs, as my hon. Friend has said, because otherwise we leave ourselves wide open.

[Greg Hands]

Can the hon. Gentleman be absolutely clear? I am intrigued. Is he saying therefore that he agrees with the US approach—not having a lesser duty rule and allowing these very large punitive tariffs to be put on British industry, Bombardier in this case, exporting to the United States? I think he is agreeing that he likes the US approach.

[Bill Esterson]

That is not what I was suggesting. I am saying that we have to recognise that countries such as the US, as demonstrated by this case, are prepared to act. We have to be realistic about that. We have to make sure that we have the right representation on the TRA so that we are making the right case. I do not think 300% tariffs is a good idea at all, but we certainly need to be able to make the right judgments when such things apply. There is a balance between protectionism and the approach in the Bombardier case.

[Barry Gardiner]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be foolish to look at one specific example of an outrageous situation, as we have had with Bombardier in the US? Thank goodness that the ITC came to the correct conclusion there. Just because it is possible to arrive at the wrong conclusion should not mean that one judges the lesser duty rule simply on that.

[Bill Esterson]

Of course that is right. My hon. Friend deserves credit for taking the time and effort to go and meet the ITC and to make the case with the trade unions and others from this country. The lobbying that he and others were involved in played no small part in delivering for workers and business in the UK. He deserves a lot of credit for that. I will return to my speech—

[Matt Western]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

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[Bill Esterson]

What a good idea.

[Matt Western]

This reminds me of Saturday afternoons watching wrestling. [Laughter.] The crucial thing about the TRA is that it is a facilitator, not a barrier, to ensure the needs of sectors and those involved in the sectors, whether workers or businesses. That came across very clearly in the representations from witnesses last week as something they want. My hon. Friend mentioned the chairmanship. As with the Office for Budget Responsibility, it is crucial that the chair is seen as an important role and not some political lackey.

[Bill Esterson]

Yes, that is exactly right. The point is to get the balance between how the Conservative Government under David Cameron blocked attempts to use appropriate trade remedy measures to defend our steel industry and the excessive use of them by the Americans. That is what the new TRA should do and that is why it needs to have the right balance of membership.

The message from the evidence given by the witnesses last week was loud and clear: stakeholders want representation on the TRA. They want their voices to be heard and their concerns taken into account, and they want that guaranteed in statute, not through ad hoc discussions with the Government. George Peretz QC told us that the composition of the TRA

“ought to be balanced by statute and that it ought to reflect a variety of different perspectives.”––[Official Report, Trade Public Bill Committee, 23 January 2018; c. 55, Q105.]

We also heard from James Ashton-Bell of the CBI, that:

“In anything where you are making choices about trade and how it will impact the wider economy, you should have a wide and balanced group of people advising Government, or an independent authority, about how to make those choices.”––[Official Report, Trade Public Bill Committee, 23 January 2018; c. 25, Q54.]

Chris Southworth of the International Chamber of Commerce concurred, saying that

“the representation is a critical point. An independent body, yes, but there must be representation within that independent body to represent all the important voices”.––[Official Report, Trade Public Bill Committee, 23 January 2018; c. 25, Q54.]

That responds to the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington.

If the Minister will not listen to me, will he at least listen to business associations, industry representatives, trade unions, academics, QCs and civil society? They are all coming out against how he and his Department are going about this. I urge Members on all sides to support our three amendments, but if the inevitable happens and the Minister leads them into voting us down, I look forward to him bringing forward his alternatives later in proceedings.

[Hannah Bardell]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Davies. It has been a fascinating debate. I want to say at the outset that we absolutely support our colleagues in the Labour party in their amendments, but have also tabled amendments 39, 38, 40 and 41, which I will speak to.

The legislation needs to be strengthened. Amnesty’s response was interesting. It said that an independent body with appropriate expertise should be established with a remit to conduct or commission assessment impacts of future free trade agreements on human rights, equality and the environment in the UK and of trading partners. This could be the proposed Trade Remedies Authority if it were given the resources, remit and powers.

On powers, it is important to remember that we are 20 years on from devolution. Devolution delivered huge changes across the nations of the UK. I can understand that many in England perhaps feel somewhat left behind, because we have moved on in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I have some sympathy with that but the point of the amendments is respecting devolution, and recognising the nations of the UK and the relationship that they have developed directly with the EU, and the importance of trade.

The Scottish Parliament was established to be accountable and answerable to the people of Scotland, to be open and encourage participation, to be accessible and to involve all the people of Scotland in its decisions as much as possible, and to have power sharing. That is an important point: power should be shared among the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and the people of Scotland.

On the decisions about where the Trade Remedies Authority is physically located and about whether it will have non-exec members, decisions about the businesses and the people of each of the nations of the UK are best made as close to those people as possible. We understand that the functions of the Trade Remedies Authority will be reserved and it will undertake trade remedies investigations across the UK, but it is important that Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Ministers have a role in the Trade Remedies Authority.

Amendment 39 requires the Secretary of State to secure the consent of each of the devolved nations before appointing a chair to the Trade Remedies Authority. We feel it is only fair that we have a say in that matter. It is common practice for interview panels to be made up of people from a range of disciplines. The hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford said that there will be a range of people, but I am sure he will have sympathy with my view that, although the west midlands is a very important part of the UK, it is not a country in the way that Scotland is. Since 2007, Scottish exports to the EU have grown by more than 25%. The EU market is eight times larger than the UK’s alone. Scotland exported £12.3 billion-worth of exports to the EU in 2015, and that figure is growing, so the EU is a hugely important market for us. It stands to reason that Wales and Northern Ireland must have a fair and proper say in who is appointed.

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[Greg Hands]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point, but the point is to have a UK-wide perspective, and for the appointments to be based on expertise in that space, and made following good governance principles. That is the objective for the membership of the TRA.

On trade remedies, I think the hon. Member for Sefton Central impugned my hon. Friend the Member for Corby by saying that he was not sufficiently interested in the steel industry. I have known my hon. Friend for some time, and he is incredibly passionate about the steel industry. He takes a keen interest in the operations of the TRA, and is quite expert in this space. He knows that much of the detail of the operation of the TRA is not in this Bill but in the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill.

[Bill Esterson]

The Minister really should not make such accusations; he knows that is not what I said or what I meant. I am well aware that the hon. Member for Corby takes a keen interest in the subject, along with all Members representing constituencies across the country with a steel industry presence; they work together extremely hard, cross-party, to try to support the steel industry. It was a completely inaccurate accusation, and I hope the Minister will withdraw it. My criticism was entirely of the Government and their failure in the European Union to support the measures that were needed.

[Greg Hands]

I think we are in one of those cycles; I am alleged to have impugned the hon. Gentleman by saying that he impugned my hon. Friend the Member for Corby. I will just leave it on the record that my hon. Friend is a doughty defender of the steel industry in the House, and through his influence with the Government.

I think the hon. Member for Sefton Central suggested that the Secretary of State should not appoint members at all. We need the Secretary of State to appoint the non-executive members in order to ensure that they are directly accountable to an elected representative with responsibility for the whole UK, because ultimately trade remedy measures will be taken across the UK. That person is quite properly the Secretary of State, who is accountable to Parliament. That is broadly in line with what happens in other arm’s length bodies.

The hon. Gentleman also talked about putting in place the right framework for the TRA. We are clear that we will operate a robust trade remedies regime to protect UK industry from injury caused by unfair trading practices and unforeseen surges in imports. I said of the TRA at the very beginning that free trade does not mean trade without rules. Rules are incredibly important, and making sure we have a strong defensive capability is a key part of that. That is why there will be a presumption in favour of measures in all dumping and subsidies investigations—that is in the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill.

It is right that there is a mechanism for identifying whether measures are likely to have a disproportionate impact on other economic actors in the UK, such as downstream industries and consumers, and whether they might have a regional impact or an impact in one of the nations of the United Kingdom. The economic interest test ensures that the trade remedy system takes into account wider economic considerations in addition to the interests of UK producer industries. It is a chance to step back and consider whether measures would be in the best economic interests of the UK and will ensure that measures are not imposed where that is not the case.

Points were raised about different balances within the board. We have to come back to the overriding factor that should prevail to ensure that we comply with good governance principles: appointments are made following an open, competitive process on the basis of merit and on the basis of being able to discharge the function of looking at the whole question of a particular issue that might be prompting a trade remedy on a UK-wide basis. That is why it is important that we have built appropriate processes into the framework set out in the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill to ensure that impacts on Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are given due consideration.

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[Greg Hands]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention because it allows me to say that I do not agree. The non-executive members are not intended to be representatives of particular interests or particular parts of the United Kingdom, or particular sectors or producers or consumers or trade unions. The idea is that all members of the board have the ability to think right across the question of what is happening in terms of the injury that has been created or reported to have been created. What is the best way of assessing all the evidence? What is the best way of doing, for example, the economic interest test? I entirely disagree with him. These people are not representatives. They are able to take a dispassionate, evidence-based and informed decision, looking at all of the available evidence.

The TRA will consider the wider impact of trade remedy measures as part of the economic interest test. As part of that process, the TRA will consider the impact of measures on different groups across the UK, including any regional or distributional consideration. It is important to understand that its members do not have to be, and in fact should not be, representatives of those regional distributional considerations or producer or consumer and so on. They are designed to look at the evidence and come to a recommendation based on the overall evidence in front of them. It will also consider the likely impact on affected industries and consumers. We would expect the TRA to gather information where relevant to inform the economic interest test. For those reasons, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

[Bill Esterson]

I will not be withdrawing the amendment. The Minister talks about good governance. Non-executives often, on many boards, in many situations, come from membership organisations. They then use their judgment on a wide range of issues, but they come from those membership organisations. I am afraid he is wrong about that. He speaks of the risk of political appointments. There is one way to ensure that this is a politicised series of appointments: to leave everything in the hands of the Secretary of State. That is for sure. If the appointment process is so watertight, why is there a whole section in the Bill dedicated to what happens if the chief executive is appointed by the Secretary of State? It is being anticipated as, I guess, a quite likely scenario.

The Minister talked about accountability to Parliament, but there is none under the Bill. There are a number of examples of parliamentary scrutiny of appointments. Select Committees play a significant role in a number of appointments to public office. The Treasury Committee gives its consent to the appointment and dismissal of members of the Budget Responsibility Committee. The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee has the power of veto over the appointment of an Information Commissioner, and there are a number of examples of pre-appointment hearings for significant public appointments.

When something is so crucial to our economic and international trade future, why do the Government not care to involve the Select Committee in the appointments? If they will not support the amendments, I look forward to them coming forward and dealing with the point that the Minister made in his summing up about how he expects accountability to be delivered to Parliament. I will put our three amendments to the vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made.