Oral Answers to Questions

Ranil Jayawardena Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mr Ranil Jayawardena)]

The Department for International Trade has established structures to engage very constructively with devolved Administrations across the United Kingdom, including the Welsh Government. I and my fellow Ministers will be speaking with Welsh Government counterparts in due course, as we always have done.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The Welsh Government, Hybu Cig Cymru and the farmers unions have all expressed concerns about the direction of UK trade policy, especially with regard to food—fears, I suspect, that will be heightened by today’s announcement about the deal with New Zealand. On the eve of COP26, can the Minister explain the environmental sense of undercutting domestic food production with imports from the other side of the world?

[Mr Jayawardena]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman slightly misses the point about trade. The opportunity for trade is for us to be able to sell all over the world too. The Welsh farmers, along with British farmers across our country, I am sure, will be seeking these opportunities to trade not only with the 68 countries around the world with whom we have trade deals, plus the EU, but more to come—with the Gulf, with India, and much more in future. In respect of the opportunities regarding our friends in New Zealand and Australia, they sell much more of their products to Asia, where prices are higher, so our farmers need not be concerned.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

7. What recent assessment she has made of trends in the level of UK trade with the EU.

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[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

11. What recent assessment she has made of the potential effect on trade of the suspension of export licences for UK pork processing plants trading with China.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mr Ranil Jayawardena)]

I am grateful for the question. This issue has affected pork exporters in many countries. To my knowledge, three British businesses are affected. In the 12 months to August 2021, British pig meat exports to China decreased by 3,642 tonnes, which is down 2.1%. The value of pig meat exported to China over the same period increased by £12.6 million, however, which is up 4.6%.

[Dave Doogan]

I am afraid it does appear that almost every single UK Government Department is trying to undermine the UK pig sector, and nowhere is that more keenly felt than in Brechin in my constituency. The Secretary of State said earlier to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) that DEFRA will be supplying us with an answer to the China exports crisis. DEFRA is impotent; this is a trade issue. What is the Department for International Trade going to do about the crisis in exports to China?

[Mr Jayawardena]

I appreciate the strength of the hon. Member’s conviction in this area, but I come back to the core answer, which is that Her Majesty’s Government will work in every possible way we can to resolve such issues. Ministers have raised this issue with Chinese counterparts, and this Department continues to press the Chinese authorities for a swift resolution. We are working very closely with affected British pork processing plants. I would just make the point to him that we are very clear-eyed on our trade relationship with China. We have no plans to negotiate a trade deal, but we believe that more trade with our trading partners around the world, including China, is important, so we are working very closely on this.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

12. What recent progress her Department has made on securing a free trade agreement with India.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade (Mr Ranil Jayawardena)]

We have been crystal clear on this. We will not compromise our high environmental, animal welfare and food safety standards. That is non-negotiable.

[Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)]

T6. The port of Southampton is one of the busiest container ports in the UK. Between 80% and 90% of containers arriving at the port are from the far east. Now that we are free to negotiate and sign our own trade deals, will my right hon. Friend update the House on what progress she has made on securing deals with countries in the far east and how that will help to ensure that the port of Southampton thrives into the future?

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

T8. The former Secretary of State allowed the steel sector an additional year to appeal against the Trade Remedies Authority’s wrong-headed recommendations to remove safeguards. Do current Ministers share the sector’s concerns that without an extension of the safeguards, we risk becoming a magnet for imported steel, putting at risk thousands of high-paid, high-skilled jobs and millions of pounds of economic value?

[Mr Jayawardena]

We took a very careful and measured approach to this difficult issue. We are determined to back the steel sector, but we will do so in a WTO-compliant way. The Trade Remedies Authority is working very hard on this issue.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

T7. With almost all my immediate family living in New Zealand and as a regular visitor there in more normal times, may I thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the work she has done to secure the free trade agreement, and provide my assurance that there is a market there for British businesses that is very keen to grow? How, during the course of the development of free trade agreements, do she and her Department engage with the Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, which are also very keen to benefit from the advantages of our new-found freedoms now we are no longer in the EU?

[Mr Jayawardena]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for all that he says. He is right that we should be ambitious not only for the United Kingdom herself, but for the Crown dependencies. The Crown dependencies are an important part of our family and the Department for International Trade has developed a very strong working relationship with both officials and Ministers from their Governments. They are consulted prior to the launching of FTAs and consistently engage with us as the agreements progress towards signature and implementation.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

T9. Ministers have repeatedly told this House that trade does not need to come at the expense of human rights, yet in Colombia this year alone 43 people were killed by police during protests in April and May. More than 100 social leaders have been murdered and former FARC combatants continue to be targeted at an appalling rate. Does the Secretary of State not agree that those are grounds to follow recent calls from Colombian trade unions and the TUC to suspend Colombia’s membership of the UK-Andean trade agreement by invoking its human rights clause?

[Mr Jayawardena]

We will always look very closely at any abuses of rights and responsibilities around the world. The agreement the hon. Lady refers to is based on an EU agreement, which provided us and businesses across the country with continuity. It is important that we ensure we balance the objectives across our trade agreements to deliver benefits for British businesses. I know that British businesses across the north-east value greatly that agreement.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

What progress has my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the team made on increasing trade with Israel, our good friend and partner, particularly in the pharmaceutical and high-tech industries?

[Mr Jayawardena]

Trade with Israel is going from strength to strength. My hon. Friend is right to raise the opportunities in tech in particular for the future. We are probing and scoping for better and deeper trade relations, including a future revised trade agreement that will allow us to do much more in the years ahead.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

Because of poorly negotiated ideology-driven free trade deals, farmers will have no choice, if their businesses are to survive, but to resort to more intensive, less climate-friendly farming to compete with cheaper imports from such places as Australia—pretty shameful in the year that the UK hosts COP. Has the Department for International Trade, alongside colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, analysed how this shift will impact on local pollution levels and our wider greenhouse gas footprint?

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[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Sir David Amess was due to ask a question today and I suspect that, as chair of the all-party British-Maldives parliamentary group, he would have reiterated previous questions about support for the very sustainable fishing industry there. As part of the all-party group on small island developing states, which includes the Maldives, I therefore feel honour-bound to pursue that cause on his behalf. Why are we requiring 20% import tariffs on tuna from the Maldives? It is a highly sustainable sector and other SIDS do not have the same tariffs. What progress is being made on negotiating an economic partnership agreement or finding some other way to remove this unfair barrier?

[Mr Jayawardena]

The hon. Lady rightly refers to our late colleague, Sir David Amess, and his brilliance in championing the issues of people not only across our country, but across the world. His representations on behalf of the Maldives remain firmly lodged in my mind. Along with the Secretary of State, I will certainly continue to be committed to working with our friends and allies across the Commonwealth, including in the Maldives. The Maldives does not benefit from an agreement because the EU had not secured an agreement with the Maldives. I am looking very closely at what we can do now that we have taken back control of our trade policy—[Interruption.] Although Opposition Members do not wish to listen to my answer, I refer to my answer from the last International Trade questions, when I said that we would look very closely at what we could do in that regard.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

With nearly 70 free trade deals now signed and the fact that the British people voted to leave political union with the European Union, does the Secretary of State agree that Opposition Members would have kept us in the single market and in the customs union, and we would not have been able to negotiate the free trade deals that we now have around the country, including the one announced with New Zealand? This now puts us in pole position to be the global leader that we are.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

As we have heard, human rights are too often forgotten in our trade deals. I believe that the Foreign Secretary is now courting Saudi Arabia even more, to name just one of the countries that has a dubious record. When will the Government start getting serious about human rights and make it clear to countries around the world that until they get their human rights records sorted out, they are not going to get trade deals with the UK?

[Mr Jayawardena]

The hon. Gentleman does not seem to value trade around the world as a force for good. By having strong economic relationships, we can have honest and open conversations with trading partners, and we will continue to do so. In the Gulf, we have the opportunity to trade with a market of 50 million people, 30 million of whom, I believe, are in Saudi Arabia. The opportunities for trade are great and we will not let that sentiment from the Labour party get in the way of more trade for the benefit of our people. At the same time, if he had listened to the Secretary of State earlier, he would have heard that more trade will never come at the expense of our values.

[Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

The UK is already one of the most attractive investment destinations in the world and this investment is vital to levelling up the country, particularly investment in new technologies and green innovation. Will the Secretary of State confirm that she is working to encourage this type of investment to help us to progress to net zero emissions and deliver on the Prime Minister’s excellent 10-point plan?