Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley South)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
What recent discussions she has had with UK trade partners on maintaining International Labour Organisation standards in future trade agreements.
Answered by Ranil Jayawardena
While the detail of free trade agreements is reserved for formal negotiations, we have committed in our public mandates to protect our labour standards as the British people would expect. These include health and safety, minimum wages and action on modern slavery. We will continue to uphold Britain’s high standards and remain an active member of the International Labour Organisation.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley South)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, how many employees of his Department make use of the childcare voucher scheme.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Department for International Trade (DIT) provide childcare vouchers for staff employed in the UK through a salary sacrifice scheme operated by the provider Edenred. As of January 2018, DIT have 65 employees registered to receive childcare vouchers through the scheme.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley South)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what process for receiving evidence on steel dumping will be established after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by Greg Hands
When the UK begins to operate its own independent trade remedies framework, UK steel producers will be able to bring complaints and evidence of dumping directly to the dedicated Trade Remedies Authority (TRA), which is established in the Trade Bill. The aim of the legislation contained in the Trade Bill is to ensure that UK businesses, including in the steel industry, can continue to be protected against unfair and injurious trade practices, such as dumping and subsidy. The TRA will then assess whether there is sufficient evidence, according to the framework set out in the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill, to start an investigation. These processes will adhere to the specific requirements contained in the relevant WTO Agreements.
We are working to make our system as easy as possible for businesses to engage with, including developing an online digital tool to underpin these processes.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley South)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, how many of the existing EU measures on steel and steel product dumping the Government plans to maintain after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by Greg Hands
The Department for International Trade (DIT) is preparing a UK trade remedies framework, in readiness for the UK leaving the EU.
In support of this, a call for evidence was published on 28 November 2017 and its aims are to identify which UK businesses produce goods currently subject to anti-dumping, or anti-subsidy measures, or to on-going investigations related to these.
It asks those businesses to state whether they support, are neutral to, or oppose the maintaining of those measures, when the UK begins to operate its independent trade remedy framework. It asks for data about those businesses’ production and sales, and total UK production and sales.
We invite other interested parties to provide relevant information for measures of interest to them. This will enable us to make an accurate assessment of applications to maintain measures.