Trade Bill

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

Had the Secretary of State been in his place, I would have reassured him that the Labour party knows that the Bill is a deliberately limited piece of legislation concerned with continuing the existing trade arrangements after Brexit. However, the fact that the Bill is about transmuting EU agreements into UK law does not mean that we do not have questions about, first, the process the Government are adopting; secondly, the degree of parliamentary scrutiny of the arrangements, or lack thereof—after all, the Institute for Government recommended that the Bill should ensure that there is parliamentary time for debate and scrutiny, but the Government seem to have ignored that; and thirdly, the possible effect of the Bill on future trade deals.

The Opposition recognise that the UK will need to formalise trading relationships with those third countries that have a trade agreement with the EU because, should Brexit happen, we will no longer be party to those agreements. However, the Government intend to award Ministers sweeping Henry VIII powers to amend retained EU law, so that they can fast-track the agreements. I join my colleagues in opposing the use of Henry VIII powers for such fast-tracking, especially when those powers might be used to water down or remove standards, safeguards, rights or protections. We heard no reassurance from the Secretary of State on that.

We want a truly independent Trade Remedies Authority to help to protect UK industry, but that authority should report directly to Parliament rather than to the Department. That seems so obvious that I do not know why the Minister has not already caved in on the issue.

The Bill awards to HMRC new powers to share limited taxpayer information with international bodies and Departments, including the Department for International Trade, but the circumstances in which the Government intend those powers to be used has not been made clear and the wording of the legislation is opaque. More clarity on that from the Minister would be helpful.

Many organisations are saying that the Bill is a missed opportunity to align Britain’s international trade and international development policies. The Government have been clear that trade is a route out of poverty, so they should be saying through the Bill more about how the sustainable development goals in particular could be used to achieve that aim. The Fairtrade Foundation has raised the potential effect of Brexit on Fairtrade, but it seems the Government have not fully considered it. The fair trade market is currently worth £1.6 billion and is dependent on an effective trading relationship with the EU27. Many fair trade goods are exported to one EU country before being processed and re-exported to other EU countries. It is not clear whether the Bill takes that into account.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

Does the hon. Lady believe that there will be an opportunity in future deals for value-added goods such as chocolate and processed coffee to come into the UK from continents such as Africa, rather than just the raw materials coming in and us adding the value?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but the point I am making is that it would have been extremely helpful to have had things like that flagged up in the legislation, partly to give reassurance to developing countries.

Global Justice Now has highlighted the problems with some existing economic partnership agreements because some countries have refused to sign them. It would have been useful for the Government to have taken that on board in the Bill and stated clearly that they would seek to improve on those agreements in future trade deals.

The Overseas Development Institute has presented some recommendations for the Government, which I think it would be helpful if the Minister addressed. It recommends that the UK should, first, apply the principle of “do no harm” so that, at the very least, existing unilateral preference schemes should be rolled over; secondly, prioritise the roll-over of existing free trade agreements with developing countries; and thirdly, align its trade and development policies.

There is a lot at stake. When I was in Bangladesh recently, I met a fair trade co-operative that has extremely good working practices and can export to a range of countries, including the UK. I urge the Government to support those sorts of projects and businesses, in this legislation and in future legislation.