Labour demands answers on Truss human rights ‘simplifications’

Emily Thornberry MP, Labour’s Shadow International Trade Secretary, responding to the Government’s consultation paper on a new system of trade preferences for developing countries, said:

“A maximum of 19 countries will see a reduction in tariffs as a result of these proposals, but for the poorest countries, there will be no direct financial benefit at all, and nothing to make up for the devastating cuts in overseas aid which Rishi Sunak sought to make permanent last week.

"Of far more significance are the proposals buried in this consultation to ‘simplify’ the conditions to which trade preferences are currently tied, prohibiting genocide, mass killings of civilians, modern slavery, child labour, and other serious abuses of human rights and workers’ rights.

“In the last year, Liz Truss has blocked the genocide amendment against China, resumed the sale of UK bombs for use in Yemen, and signed trade deals with tyrants from Egypt to Cameroon. So when she says she now wants to simplify the requirements our country makes on human rights when we give trade preferences, we urgently need to know which requirements she wants to get rid of, why, and with what consequences.”

Ends

Notes to editors:

1. The government’s consultation paper on changes to the trade preferences regime is here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1003575/gsp-consult-questions.pdf and its ‘statement of direction’ on its proposed changes is here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1003573/gsp-consult-statement-direction.pdf

2. Page 4 of the statement of direction says the government wants views on: “simplifying the conditions that could lead to variation or suspension of preferences for any beneficiary country.”

3. Section 5 of the consultation paper sets out the current conditions under which countries could have their access varied or suspended, including if they are “engaging in serious and systematic violations of the human rights and labour rights contained in conventions” specified in the current legislation here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/1438/schedule/2/made

4. Questions 37-47 of the consultation asks respondents to say what impact they believe the current conditions on access have on business, on exports from developing countries, and on compliance with human and labour rights in developing countries, and then asks for views on whether the government should ‘simplify the current requirements’.

5. There are a number of countries in the current UK trade preferences list with whom the government does not currently have free trade deals, and which have very poor records on human rights, including Algeria, Bangladesh, Burundi, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, The Philippines, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria and Uzbekistan. The conditions attached to those countries’ trade preferences are therefore the only financial leverage the government currently has over their conduct.

6. The only 19 countries who stand to see any tariff reductions on their current exports as a result of the government’s proposals are the 23 lower-to-middle income countries currently in the UK’s General and Enhanced Trade Preferences Frameworks, minus Ghana, Jordan, Kenya and Vietnam, who have separate free trade agreements with the UK.