Trade Bill (Seventh sitting)

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 7th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 25th June 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Gareth Thomas]

My hon. Friend has always grounded his remarks in reality. Let us remember that Conservative Ministers and Members have always wanted to present trade negotiations as a Christmas sale, where one just turns up and gets a shedload of lovely bargains. They have not, as yet, been open and honest with the British people about the trade-offs that trade negotiations inevitably bring, on which—I suspect this afternoon—more anon.

I gently suggest to my hon. Friend that we are likely to hear the Minister, in his wind-up speech, chastising us again for our lack of belief in the calibre of the Secretary of State himself and the Department to complete these UK-specific trade agreements. If the Committee remembers when the last Trade Bill was discussed, so confident were the previous ministerial team that this power was actually not quite as necessary as first appeared, they agreed to reduce the sunset period from five years to three years. One can only assume that the Cabinet Secretary got back on the phone after the current Prime Minister was selected and said, “I’m really sorry to bring you bad news, but one of the chief acolytes of the little-lamented George Osborne is back in your Department—”

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mrs Cummins. While this is very entertaining, I am quite conscious that we are still not even past considering clause 2. We must get through the whole of the rest of the Bill this afternoon—there are 12 more clauses. May I ask your advice, Mrs Cummins, on how we can get through that when speeches are not necessarily referring to the Bill itself?

[The Chair]

I hear that point of order, and I am sure that Mr Thomas also heard it. I encourage him to perhaps drift closer towards the subject of the amendment.