Asked by: Nigel Evans (Conservative - Ribble Valley)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, whether his Department plans to take steps to help SMEs understand the different regulatory environments of Commonwealth nations in order trade with those economies.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Department has an on the ground presence in 25 Commonwealth countries. These teams work closely with British small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) helping them boost their exports. Such activities ensured that my Rt Hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade could announce £1.5bn of UK-Commonwealth commercial deals at the recent Commonwealth Business Forum in London. He also announced policies to help boost intra-Commonwealth trade, one of which was the launch of the Commonwealth Standards Network to increase the use of international standards across the Commonwealth, which will support private and public sector users of standards, including SMEs. We also continue to look at reducing trade barriers bilaterally which will benefit SMEs through our current Working Groups with countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and India.
Asked by: Nigel Evans (Conservative - Ribble Valley)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, whether his Department plans to use bilateral trade negotiations as an opportunity to reduce modern slavery by proposing the inclusion in trade agreements of provisions on that issue; and whether the Government plans to implement indices and metrics to monitor changes in the risk of modern slavery taking place in that context.
Answered by Greg Hands
The UK is committed to working with international partners and businesses to tackle modern slavery in global supply chains. It is vital that increased trade is not based on the exploitation and abuse of workers. We will be considering what further steps we may be able to take, to prevent modern slavery, through our future trade policy.
We are in the process of developing our approach to impact assessments (IAs), pertaining to new future trade agreements. The approach will be consistent with the Government’s current impact assessment process for new legislation, which considers environmental and social impacts where appropriate.
Asked by: Nigel Evans (Conservative - Ribble Valley)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps his Department is taking to assist SMEs to prepare for the UK leaving the EU; and what steps his Department is taking to help SMEs scale-up to increase (a) exports and (b) global trade.
Answered by Graham Stuart
I refer my Hon Friend to the answer I gave to the Hon Member for Carshalton and Wallington on 27 April 2018: UIN: 136727.