The Secretary of State for International Trade and
President of the Board of Trade (Dr Liam
Fox):...As the UK considers future free trade
agreements with the likes of the United States, Australia,
New Zealand and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement
for Trans-Pacific Partnership countries, goods exports to
those countries continued to boom. To the USA, they were up
to £54.9 billion; to Australia, up to £5.1 billion; to New
Zealand, up to £869 million; and to CPTPP countries, up to
£28.4 billion. There was other notable goods exports growth
to non-EU markets—up 29.2% to Nigeria, up 27.3%
to India, and up 18.5% to Thailand. That
news comes as London retained its position as the top tech
investment destination in Europe earlier this week.
According to PitchBook and London & Partners, the
capital received £1.8 billion-worth of tech investment in
2018—more than Berlin and Paris combined. So much for the
failure that would result from a vote to leave the European
Union...
(Feltham and Heston)
(Lab/Co-op): The Secretary of State is making a
very important point about our need to increase trade deals
and trade relationships across the world. He has mentioned
India, and on Friday I had a very good meeting with
businesses in the Indian Business Network that are keen to
increase trade with Britain. Does he agree with me that the
relationship we have with the EU in trade is not just about
our trade with the European Union? We use about 70 trade
deals that the EU has negotiated with other countries for
about £150 billion-worth of trade. Will the Secretary of
State assure this House that there will still be access to
those trade deals after we leave the European Union?
Dr Fox: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for
raising a very important point. Yes, the Government’s
intention is, of course, that we will get this deal
through, in which case, when it comes to an implementation
period, we will have the opportunity for automatic
roll-over. However, as the House would expect us to do, the
Government are also preparing, in case there is no deal, to
be able to have continuity of these trade agreements. A
number of them are close to being signed, and when they are
signed, the Government will put them to the House so that
the House can make a judgment on them...
(Brent North)
(Lab):...As with regulatory alignment, so with the
exchange of people. The deeper the trade deal we want, the
greater the need for an exchange of people. Foreign
companies that invest in the UK want and need their
indigenous workers to get visas, and the harder we make
that process, the less investment we will secure. When the
Prime Minister went to India two years ago to secure a
trade deal, she was rebuffed on precisely that
issue. The Times of India summed it up on its
front page with the headline “You want our business. But
you do not want our People”...
...Our universities and colleges represent one of the
greatest exports that our country has: education, which
contributes hugely to our economy, not just through fees
but through the industrial spin-offs from our world-leading
research. That depends on our bringing top brains from all
over the globe, and encouraging them to see the UK as
their intellectual home. However, the bogus colleges
scandal, and the way in which we have treated students
whose colleges are closed down or go into receivership, has
been a disgrace. They are victims of fraud because our
system of certification has been so poor, but we treat them
as if they were the criminals. They are given just 60 days
to find another college, often in the middle of an academic
year, and then to pay another full year’s fees before they
are classed as illegal overstayers. No wonder students from
key future trading partners in China and India are now turning to Australia,
Canada and the US as their first choices for higher
education and research...
(Aberdeen North)
(SNP):...On the subject of free trade agreements,
and on the subject of fantasy economics, the Government’s
paper on the deal scenario, the no-deal scenario and the
analysis of Brexit costs talks about the potential for
signing free trade agreements with the US, Australia, New
Zealand, Malaysia, Brunei, China, India, Brazil, Argentina,
Paraguay, Uruguay, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar,
Kuwait and Bahrain, plus rolling over all the FTAs on their
current terms. The paper says that all the new free trade
agreements will be signed on the basis of there being zero
tariffs on everything in the scenarios that were modelled,
and of all the FTAs being rolled over despite the bizarre
assumptions that no sensible person would think are ever
likely to happen. We are not going to have a free trade
agreement with India with zero tariffs on
everything within 15 years. That is absolutely not going to
happen...
To read the whole debate, CLICK HERE
Extract
from Lords debate on the EU Withdrawal Agreement
(CB):...The
argument that we can go global on trade by leaving the
European Union is nonsense. We are already global, with 50%
of our trade being with the European Union. Another 20% of
our trade, including with Japan, is done through the
European Union. The EU has far bigger clout in negotiating
free trade deals than we do, and we should dream on when we
talk about doing a free trade deal
with India. It has only nine free trade
deals around the world and not one is with a western
country, let alone one with a hostile immigration
policy...
(Con):...I
make it quite clear that I voted to remain. I had the
privilege of working overseas for five years of my
life—most of it in south-east Asia, although there
was a period in Canada. I am used to
trading and exporting; I am certainly used to negotiating
with Indians in India; so my background is of
someone who understands industry and commerce. I was a
founder member, I think, of the young European managers’
association in the 1960s. I was an active member of the
council of the European campaign of the Conservative Party.
My heritage in relation to Europe is there even in my
second name: Wolfgang. I think that that says enough for
most people in the Chamber: it is in the genes, as they
say. Yet I stand before you deeply worried about what is
happening today...