Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

Debate between Jim Sheridan and Julian Smith

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) and others on securing this important debate. I also congratulate him on the measured way in which he presented his progressive arguments.

The TTIP could be a good deal. It has the potential for job creation, higher wages for workers and a better deal for consumers. Trade across the Atlantic between the US and the EU is a fact of life and the US is the UK’s biggest export market. If people want to buy and sell across the water, we should do all we can to make it convenient for them to do so. But here is the key: we should have an agreement that helps ordinary people, not big corporations and big businesses. As it stands at the moment I, along with a number of my colleagues both in this House and in the trade unions, are concerned that the TTIP will allow companies to wield control over national Governments and in the long run may not help those we are told it will. The negotiations for this agreement are lacking transparency and we need more information and some people championing ordinary people’s rights before we can accept what is on the table.

We are told by the European Commission that the agreement will give an extra €545 per year to a European family of four, but only one major study has been conducted—by the Centre for Economic Policy Research, two thirds funded by investment banks, asset managers and European central banks. We need better projections to identify the economic and social impact of the deal. An average figure is not good enough. We know, for example, that while the EU motor vehicles labour force could expand by up to 1.28%, other sectors, such as communications, electrical machinery and metals, are likely to contract.

[Julian Smith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jim Sheridan]

The hon. Gentleman has had a good run so far today. I am conscious of Madam Deputy Speaker’s instructions.

The sustainability and employment impact assessment will not be completed until the end of the year and so we are in the dark about what we are signing up to. A much fuller study needs to be conducted as well on social, environmental and labour rights. When I was a shop steward I would never have considered negotiating without all the facts that were available to me. This agreement is on a far bigger scale and our Governments, with all the experts they have to hand, are going into this agreement without the information.