UK-India Free Trade Deal

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord McNicol, for that follow-up question, and thank him very much for his kindness earlier, as well. He promised to be as kind as possible during this debate, so I thank him for that.

Actually, the Government never promised to conclude these talks by Diwali. We promised to have the majority of the talks concluded by the end of October, which we have: 16 chapters, the majority, are already concluded. This trade deal is actually on track. For me, it is one of the most exciting opportunities this country has had in generations. If we think about what India has to offer us, it is phenomenal. I was in India last week, and I pay tribute to our staff on the ground there, who are doing a huge amount of work to ensure our cordial relations with a country that will, in my view, become one of our greatest partners. I have celebrated Diwali with our high commission office in Mumbai.

Negotiations are ongoing and have been going on today. We have had five formal negotiations so far, I think; we are expecting a sixth in the next month or so. If we expect progression of that, we will be looking forward to substantial progress over the coming months.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I also welcome the noble Lord to his position. Since I have been covering international trade issues for these Benches, he is now the seventh Minister that I have been shadowing, so I wish him a long time in the position. If he lasts more than nine months, he is breaking the average over the last few years.

Given that the Minister has not yet had an opportunity to update his register of interests on the Parliament website—I am grateful for his declaring of that interest at the moment—could he say, given that the UK is seeking to have services as part of this agreement and given that he has a direct financial interest, whether he will recuse himself from any of the discussions on services going forward?

We would support an FTA with India very strongly, and when we debated the issue, we also questioned which areas were still outstanding. Can the Minister confirm that the UK has put wider visa access and mutual recognition of qualifications on the table?

Can he also confirm that—while not disregarding the figures of benefits that he indicated—nearly as much of the benefit for trade with India will be offset by a decline in trade with developing nations through trade diversion, to the tune of about £3 billion, which means that the net benefit for trading with the wider region is far less than what we would expect?

Finally, can he say whether the fact that India has negotiated with Moscow a rupee/rouble swap, for the purchasing of cheaper fuel, has been raised by the UK at the very time that we are discussing services access? Surely it is not right for us to fail to raise issues of such seriousness when we are negotiating with our friendly nation in Delhi.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, for that range of questions, which I am sure we will have an opportunity to discuss at great length personally. I would like to reassure noble Lords that I am very much available to all of them for not only the formal process for discussion around trade deals but also as an individual, to make sure that we share the excitement and the opportunities offered to us and I can give noble Lords as much information as I can, in order that we can progress this process.

I would like to answer, most importantly, the first question. I do not want to go into my financial details now, but I am in the process of ensuring that I will not be presented with a conflict of interest in the next few days—hopefully by the end of the month. Of course, if there is any conflict of interest, I assume that will be addressed in the appropriate manner. I am grateful to noble Lords for your indulgence to ensure that this is done properly and effectively, and I hope that you see me as transparent on this point.