Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, with reference to Article 4.6 of the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, what assessment she has made of the steps taken by the Japanese Government to reduce the time and costs for (a) all businesses and (b) small and medium-sized enterprises since that agreement came into effect.
Answered by Greg Hands
The first meeting of the Joint Customs Cooperation Committee (JCCC) will be held in 2023. The UK and Japan will work towards further simplification of their respective customs procedures.
The UK makes its facilitations available to all traders fulfilling certain criteria, regardless of the size or sector of the business.
A comprehensive evaluation report for the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, published within 5 years of the agreement entering into force, will cover a broad range of impacts, including the impact on small and medium-sized enterprises.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, with reference to Article 17.2 of the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, what steps her Department has taken to implement a transparent, effective and predictable regulatory environment since the Agreement came into effect.
Answered by Greg Hands
Article 17.2 of the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) establishes that the UK and Japan shall provide for a transparent regulatory environment. The CEPA agreement includes one of the UK’s first standalone Good Regulatory Practices and Regulatory Cooperation (GRPRC) chapters which commits both parties to improving and maintaining a stable, predictable and transparent regulatory environment for businesses. The CEPA GRPRC chapter includes commitments to open and accessible public consultations for regulations in development, and robust regulatory impact assessments to ensure regulations are proportionate. The CEPA also establishes a Committee on Regulatory Cooperation to discuss these matters.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, if her Department will make an estimate of the potential economic impact of the requirement for companies exporting to Austria to register with a local authority for a fee on those companies; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Shadow Minister (Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Austrian requirement is for applicants for public procurements to register with a local authority before submitting tender documents. This is not a general requirement for all companies exporting to Austria. While we have not estimated the potential economic impact of the specific issue raised, estimates for a selection of barriers where Government action is being taken are included in the published “Aggregate valuation estimates for market access barriers”.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, whether she has made a recent assessment what trade barriers there are for businesses trading with the EU; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
This Government is working to break down trade barriers around the world, and that includes with the EU, where we are implementing our high-quality, zero quota and zero tariff Trade and Cooperation Agreement. A recent assessment of trade barriers is published in ‘Official Statistics: Market Access Barrier Statistics: financial year 2021-22’, where they are broken down by geographic regions, including Europe. In the year to March 2022, 47 market access barriers were resolved in Europe, an 11.9% increase year on year.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, with reference to Article 20.2 of the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, how many discussions (a) ministers and (b) officials from her Department have had with the Japanese government on (i) training programmes, (ii) trade education, (iii) trade finance, (iv) identifying commercial partners in the other Party, (v) establishing good business credentials, (vi) participating and integrating into global supply chains and (vii) using electronic commerce, to support small and medium sized enterprises, since the agreement came into effect.
Answered by Greg Hands
The UK and Japan engage regularly at official and ministerial level to discuss how to support businesses to use the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), trade education, ecommerce and training programmes.
For example, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry have agreed to workshops, policy dialogues and commercial engagement with business in line with the small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) chapter of the CEPA. In 2021, Department for International Trade and Japanese officials exchanged information on awareness-raising activities of the CEPA. In February 2022, the former Secretary of State for International Trade, my Rt Hon. Friend for Berwick-upon-Tweed, and Japan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs discussed the importance of trade digitalisation for businesses, particularly SMEs.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, with reference to Article 20.2 of the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, what assessment she has made of the work of the Japanese government to strengthen cooperation between the UK and Japan on (a) identifying ways to assist small and medium enterprises to take advantage of the commercial the agreement and (b) promote and facilitate trade and investment opportunities for small and medium sized enterprises since that agreement came into effect.
Answered by Greg Hands
The Department for International Trade is content that both the UK and Japan are meeting their obligations with regards to Article 20.2.
The UK and Japan have made resources available on their respective government websites to support businesses to take advantage of the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), including tariff lines and essential business guidance.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Investment have agreed to a series of workshops, policy dialogues and commercial engagement with business in line with the small and medium-sized enterprises chapter of the CEPA.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what the preference utilisation rate is for goods exports under each active free trade agreement for businesses with a headcount of (a) 250 or more, (b) between 50 and 249, (c) between 10 and 49 and (d) less than 10 employees in each year since January 2020.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Shadow Minister (Energy Security and Net Zero)
The data required to calculate preference utilisation of UK goods exports is collected through customs declarations of the importing partner country. At present this data is not publicly available for non-EU FTA partners. Preference utilisation of EU imports from non-EU partner countries (including Great Britain since 2021) is published by the European Commission: https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/enforcement-and-protection/implementing-and-enforcing-eu-trade-agreements_en (file link)
The Department for International Trade has committed to publishing a monitoring report for trade agreements every two years from 2023. This will include preference utilisation rates from all partner countries where available.
Preference utilisation rates by business size is not centrally collected.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, with reference to Article 20.2 of the UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, how many online seminars, workshops or other related activities (a) her Department and (b) the Japanese government has held with the purpose of informing small and medium sized enterprises of the benefits available to them under the Agreement, (i) before and (ii) since the Agreement came into effect; and on which dates they took place.
Answered by Greg Hands
Between March to June 2021, the Department for International Trade (DIT) ran a promotional campaign including events, webinars and podcasts to raise awareness of the Agreement to UK businesses. This resulted in DIT:
The UK Government continues to promote the Agreement to business, including via Export to Japan, a not-for-profit organisation, part funded by DIT.
The UK is content that Japan has met its objectives under Article 20.2.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, with reference to her Department’s policy paper entitled UK-India free trade agreement: the UK's strategic approach, published in January 2022, if she will publish the modelling her Department used as the basis for Table 2: Summary of estimates of UK macroconomic impacts, long run changes against the baseline; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Greg Hands
A UK-India Free Trade Agreement will offer significant economic opportunities to British business and will benefit domestic consumers.
The macroeconomic impacts of a deal are estimated using a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model. Details of the approach used to assess the macroeconomic impacts and the modelling assumptions are described on page 53 and 54 of the document. These provide the basis for the results seen in Table 2.
Further details on the model specification can be found in ‘Technical annexes accompanying the Scoping Assessment of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and India’ (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-approach-to-negotiating-a-free-trade-agreement-with-india).
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, with reference to Section 5.31 of the Autumn Budget 2022, CP 751, published on 17 November 2022, whether the proposed two-year suspension of certain tariffs will include the suspension or removal of any trade remedies applied to affected goods.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The tariff suspensions announced in the Autumn Budget will not include the suspension or removal of any existing trade remedies. Where suspensions coincide with an anti-dumping duty, that trade remedy will remain in force.