Secretary of State for International Trade (): The United Kingdom
continues to make good progress toward joining the Comprehensive
and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP)
this year. Below is an update to Parliament on developments in
negotiations over the course of recent months.
This bloc of 11 countries represents around £9 trillion in GDP
and includes some of the world’s largest current and future
economies. Joining CPTPP puts Britain at the heart of a dynamic
group of countries, as the world economy increasingly centres on
the Pacific region. And as these economies grow, it is even more
important that the UK is in a free trade agreement with them, so
that we benefit from this growth.
CPTPP membership offers a wide range of benefits for the UK.
Accession could see 99.9% of UK exports being eligible for
tariff-free trade with CPTPP members. Joining could also, for
example, greatly benefit our world-class services sector through
advanced provisions that facilitate digital trade, and modern
rules on data to enable more financial and professional services
markets to be opened up.
This will support the economy across the UK: the Department for
International Trade’s published scoping assessment shows that
joining the agreement could benefit all parts of the country,
with the greatest relative gains expected in Scotland, Northern
Ireland and Wales.
The UK announced its intention to join CPTPP in February last
year and began formal negotiations on our accession in June 2021.
In February this year, CPTPP Parties confirmed that we were ready
to move to the final phase of the accession process, having
largely demonstrated our compliance with the existing CPTPP
rules.
This final phase of the accession process involves applicants
making high-standard market access offers to CPTPP Parties. The
UK submitted initial offers in March 2022, including on goods,
services, investment, government procurement and financial
services. Since then, we have continued to engage in talks on
both a bilateral and collective basis with CPTPP members in order
to come to an agreement on these market access issues.
We will continue to negotiate with CPTPP members over the coming
months. We will ensure the UK joins the agreement on the right
terms, and that British businesses can begin taking advantage of
this trade deal as soon as possible.
The Department will continue to engage with Parliament over the
course of negotiations. Once the agreement is signed, it will be
subject to pre-ratification scrutiny under the Constitutional
Reform and Governance Act 2010 (CRaG), and any legislation
required to implement the agreement will need to be passed. Prior
to commencing scrutiny under CRaG the Government will commission
and publish the advice of the independent Trade & Agriculture
Commission, as well as laying its own report under section 42 of
the Agriculture Act 2020.
