Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Fabricant Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, because most of the time, people ask me what CPTPP stands for, let alone what it is and how they can use it—[Interruption.] Well, not my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant). We would like to make sure that people are aware of it, so they can utilise this free trade agreement as soon as it is on our statute book and ratified across the 11 countries. That is something that our export commission and support service in the Department for Business and Trade will be carrying out, and we will also be supporting MPs in their constituencies during International Trade Week to highlight opportunities that come from all our free trade agreements.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

11. What steps her Department is taking to support business exports to the US.

[The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kemi Badenoch)]

[Interruption.] Pardon me for one second; there is a technical failure. The US is our largest trading partner, with trade reaching more than £290 billion. We have already succeeded in agreeing a solution to the section 232 tariffs on UK steel and aluminium and removed the long-standing US ban on UK lamb. In fact, just yesterday, I was speaking to President Biden’s special envoy Joe Kennedy about how we can increase trade and investment in Northern Ireland. We also have an SME dialogue next month between our two countries, supporting UK and US businesses to find export opportunities in each other’s markets.

[Michael Fabricant]

That is really good news, actually. In other good news, I learned this morning that Britain has overtaken France as a manufacturing country. In order to take full advantage of that, how can we use the nine trade representatives in the United States at our embassy and our consulates even more to encourage bilateral trade?

[Kemi Badenoch]

My hon. Friend is right. We have trade ambassadors and trade envoys working to ensure that we are fully utilising the opportunities that exist across our relationship with the US. In fact, our envoy to the US has been helping and supporting with a memorandum of understanding with Florida, which we are hoping to conclude shortly. If there are specific things he thinks we can do to assist, I would be happy to meet him and organise even more engagement that will help facilitate UK-US trade.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kemi Badenoch]

That is certainly something we can look to do. There are many concerns about what will happen to copyright and intellectual property once AI continues to advance in this area. The hon. Member raises an important point. If he writes to me specifically, I will make sure that the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology gets to see that so we can incorporate it.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

I notice, by the way, that the Americans refer to it as the trans-Pacific partnership, which I think is actually a lot shorter and better than what we call it. Have there been any discussions at all with the United States Administration to ask whether they might eventually rejoin the partnership?

[Kemi Badenoch]

My hon. Friend is right. It used to be called the TPP, and it was the Canadians who added the “comprehensive and progressive” to make it quite a mouthful. The question of what the US wants to do on trade deals comes up time and again. The US has said that it will not sign any free trade agreements even though it was initially considering the TPP. That is why the announcement of the Atlantic declaration by the Prime Minister and President Biden is key. That is our new vehicle to form a trade partnership, and my Department is working actively across Government and with our counterparts in the US to make sure that that delivers for the UK.