Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, which countries with which the UK has an international trade agreement in its capacity as a member state of the EU include provisions on protection against discrimination.

All EU free trade agreements (FTA) signed since the EU-South Korea FTA (2009) have contained a trade and sustainable development chapter. These chapters include reference to the International Labour Organization (ILO) fundamental conventions which, amongst other things, provide for the elimination of discrimination at work. Other trade agreements which contain these provisions are Georgia (2014), Moldova (2014) and Ukraine (2014), Canada (provisionally applied since 2017), and recently negotiated but yet to be applied agreements with Japan, Singapore and Vietnam. All Economic Partnership Agreements signed with developing countries also reference these conventions.

The Government is committed to ensuring continuity for our existing EU trade agreements as we leave the European Union. Under the terms of the draft Withdrawal Agreement, the UK is to be treated as a Member State for the purposes of international agreements for the duration of the Implementation Period.

This provides certainty and confidence that there will be no disruption to existing relationships underpinned by international agreements as we move into the Implementation Period. Indeed many of our trading partners have already issued public statements in support of it.