UK-India Free Trade Agreement

Charlie Maynard Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests regarding the business that I founded in 1996, BDA partners, in which I still hold a stake but have no role or responsibility.

Economically, this agreement offers some benefits. As per the Government’s impact assessment, and as the Minister stated, the UK’s gross domestic product is estimated to increase by 0.13% as a result of this FTA. That is equivalent to £4.8 billion. That is in the long run— 0.13% by 2040. Let us put that into context: the hit to our economy from Brexit is around 6% to 8% of GDP—in the region of £210 billion—so its impact is 44 times larger. That is now, compared with the 0.13% we get in 15 years’ time.

[Sir Ashley Fox]

The hon. Gentleman quotes a Brexit hit of 6% to 8% of GDP. Has he just invented that figure or has he got some evidence for it?

[Charlie Maynard]

The National Bureau of Economic Research, in the United States.

[Andrew Griffith]

But you don’t like the States.

[Charlie Maynard]

I certainly like the States.

While we are making comparisons with Europe, I note that under the UK’s free trade agreement 92% of our exports to India will enter tariff-free. Under the EU’s deal, 96.6% of its exports can enter India tariff-free. Perhaps there is some logic, after all, to bigger trade blocs having more leverage. I wholeheartedly agree with the comments from the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) about national insurance contributions. I am also deeply concerned about that, as is my party. I also take the Minister’s point about visa fees and everything else, but by the time we add all those together, I think that UK Inc—whether in my constituency of Witney or across the UK—will still be at a major disadvantage. This risks undermining British labour—

[Chris Bryant]

Wrong.

[Charlie Maynard]

I really hope I am wrong, but I don’t think I am.

Moving beyond the numbers, I highlight the concerns of civil society groups, which many Members have mentioned, about clauses in the agreement on labour, the environment and human rights being characterised by a pattern of aspirational language and a lack of enforceability, with the result that they are not subject to the dispute settlement mechanism—cute words but no teeth. The Liberal Democrats have long called for a set of minimum standards to benchmark future trade agreements, which would include human rights, conflict and oppression and environmental, labour and safety standards, where they can be negotiated, based on a UK trade and human rights policy and a trade and development policy.

I want to ask some question about India’s role in busting the trade sanctions that the UK has put on Russia. To recap: Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and both the UK and the EU banned direct imports of Russian oil and petroleum products in December 2022. However, a loophole stayed open that allowed derivative products including petrochemicals imported from third countries into the UK to continue using Russian-origin crude oil and gas. In July 2025, the EU amended its sanctions legislation to target imports of petrochemicals from third countries that used Russian-origin oil. This has now taken effect in the EU. The EU has blocked this loophole. In October 2025, the UK announced a further sanctions package targeting specific third-country entities that supported Russian fossil fuels. That included India’s Nayara Energy, which is part-owned by Russia’s state oil company Rosneft.

On 2 December 2025, the Trade Minister told the Business and Trade Committee, of which I am a member,

“we want India to do less business with Russia because we want Russia’s machine to be debilitated. There are lots of things that I want to achieve in the world and not all of them can be achieved through FTAs.”

The Trade Minister and the trade team fully understood, therefore, that India was, and is, selling Russia-originated petchems into the UK. We had leverage when we were negotiating the FTA, but instead the UK decided to turn a blind eye to India’s sanction-busting, helping Russia’s war effort. This continues right now, with the UK importing jet fuel and other petrochemicals from India that are manufactured with Russian oil and gas. The refining loophole is still there because His Majesty’s Government have not yet legislated to ban imports of derivatives from Russian crude. The Government say that they expect a ban to be enforced in spring 2026, whenever that is.

Analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air shows that between the ban on direct imports coming into force in 2022 and the end of 2025, the UK has imported £4 billion-worth of jet fuel and other oil products made at refineries in India and Turkey, which run partially on Russian crude, and that every month the UK delays banning oil products made from Russian crude, it is effectively writing the Kremlin a cheque for around £44 million.

It gets worse. Four of the five largest oil refiners in India are majority-owned by the Indian Government, with Reliance being the fifth, so it is not just the Indian refiners that are helping Russia by selling us petchems; the state of India itself is right now selling jet fuel and other petrochemicals derived from Russian oil and gas into the UK. What have we done about it? We have signed a free trade agreement with India. To add insult to injury, the loophole to be closed, as far as I can tell, just covers oil derivatives, but petrochemicals are derived from natural gas, too. What is happening with those?

I have five questions for the Minister. First, what is his justification for signing an FTA with a country that is helping Russia to breach its sanctions? Secondly, was this issue discussed in the FTA negotiations? Thirdly, does the planned ban cover petrochemicals imported from India and other third countries derived from either oil or gas? Fourthly, please will the Minister tell us the specific date on which the ban will come into force, what steps will be required to effect it and what the timeline is for each of those steps? Finally, what are the reasons for the delay in implementing the ban? Why have the Government not already closed the loophole?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I am as committed to remaining within the European convention on human rights as I ever was, as are the UK Government. It would be a derogation of our international standing around the world if we departed from it. That is one of the many reasons that I oppose not only the Conservative party, which seems to have gone doolally in recent years, but those Members who were elected as Conservatives and have now joined another political party.

I want to make it absolutely clear to my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East and to others who have referred to these issues that Kashmiri Britons are of course listened to. The kind of stories that we have heard concern us.

The hon. Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) pushed in the other direction on Brexit, but he made a good point with which I completely agree. I might slightly disagree with him about the precise amount of harm that Brexit has done to our trade opportunities in the UK, but I note that a very large number of UK businesses no longer export to the European Union, and that is a massive failure for the UK. That is why we are keen to secure a better deal with the European Union, and that is what we are working on. He talked about sanctions and Russia. I am appearing before the Select Committee on which he sits, so he gets many bites of the cherry. I say to the Chair of the Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), that when I come to talk about trade sanctions in the next few weeks, I will be happy to go into the specific details that he has raised on Russia.

I gently say to the hon. Member for Witney that I get a bit irritated when I hear Lib Dems talking about Russia, because I remember being in this House in 2014 when Russia first invaded Crimea. I know he was not in the House, but the Liberal Democrats were part of the Government. It was not just that Government but many other Governments who essentially allowed Putin to take Crimea with impunity, which has left us with some of the problems we have today. I completely agree with him that we need to debilitate the Russian system as much as possible. We have introduced sanctions on entities, including India’s Nayara Energy Ltd, to ensure that we disrupt Russia’s energy revenues. We are undermining the shadow fleet wherever possible. We have announced a further 500 sanctions.

[Charlie Maynard]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I am reluctant to give way, because I have only another four minutes. The hon. Member is on the Select Committee, so he will soon be able to ask me as many questions as he wants.

[Charlie Maynard]

It will take one second.

[Chris Bryant]

It will not be one second; that is an untruth.

On 25 October, we said that we will extend our ban on the import of oil products refined in third countries using Russian crude oil.

I will refer specifically to the constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister). It is that constituent’s 39th birthday today. My hon. Friend knows that I have met his constituent’s family. It is good that some of the charges against him have already been dealt with and he has been acquitted. We want to see the rest of the charges—I think another eight charges have been laid against him—dealt with as swiftly as possible. We make that argument to the Indian Government as frequently as we can. My hon. Friend did not refer to this, but I think he would agree that there should be a full investigation into his constituent’s allegations of torture. That is an important part of us maintaining an open relationship with India.

The hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam) made a speech primarily about one specific issue. It was brief and to the point, for which I commend her—if only I could learn to do the same. She referred to the double contributions convention. I just point out to her that the previous Conservative Government made almost identical arrangements with a large number of countries, including Chile, Japan, South Korea, all of the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Barbados, Canada, Jamaica, Mauritius, the Philippines, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Turkey and the United States of America. This deal will not undermine British workers—that is the Select Committee’s finding—and it will not make it cheaper to use Indian workers. This agreement is about highly skilled workers employed by Indian companies on a temporary basis paying contributions to their own country rather than in the UK. The deal has not finally been struck; negotiations are ongoing. That deal will be subject to its own process of going through the House, during which Members will be able to raise points.