Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

Lord Leong Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, while we will always welcome improved trade relationships, the political capital invested by the Government in this announcement seems disproportionate to the potential economic impact. The deal will increase the UK’s GDP by 0.08% after 15 years. Since the Government were not able to negotiate the terms of the UK’s membership, I will ask the Minister two questions. Will it lead to the lowering of food standards or of our intellectual property protection standards? China applied to join CPTPP in September 2021—what assurances on economics and security have Ministers asked for from existing CPTPP members in relation to China’s membership?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Scotland Office (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)]

Noble Lords, it is a momentous occasion to be able to talk in this House about the signing of the CPTPP. This is a tongue twister, but we are all going to have to get our mouths around it because we are going to hear a lot more about this in the future. This is a massive region of 11 countries in the Indo-Pacific, which account, together with the UK, for 15% of world trade GDP.

We know that this trade deal originally had the US in it, and Donald Trump took the US out. That created a gap. For those of us who play the game of rugby football, you always go for the gap. The UK has taken that gap and got into this deal, which, to come to the specifics of the question, will in no way impact on our food standards and regulatory standards.

On the matter of China, China is not a member of this group. China has expressed some interest, but there are other interested countries such as Costa Rica, Ecuador, Uruguay, the Philippines and Korea that are in line before China. So, as far as we are concerned, at the moment we are not commenting on China’s accession. China has expressed an interest but, on the exact question, there will be no reduction of food standards and general regulation through this deal.