Extracts from Parliamentary proceedings - July 6
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Extract from Lords debate on Businesses and SMEs Baroness
McGregor-Smith (Con):...I came to the UK when I was two from
Allahabad in northern India. My parents always believed that coming
here would create a better future for me, and subsequently for my
sisters. It has certainly done that, but it was not easy. It was
not easy growing up as a child in Bayswater and White City,
thinking that one day I could be successful. I recall it being a
pretty hostile environment for...Request free trial
Extract from Lords debate
on Businesses and SMEs
Baroness McGregor-Smith
(Con):...I came to the UK when I was two from Allahabad
in northern India. My parents always believed that coming here
would create a better future for me, and subsequently for my
sisters. It has certainly done that, but it was not easy. It was
not easy growing up as a child in Bayswater and White City,
thinking that one day I could be successful. I recall it being a
pretty hostile environment for many people like me. However,
today, I want to talk about what made things different for me as
I grew up—namely, when I began to work in the services
sector... Extracts from International Trade questions in the Commons Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab): Members on the Conservative Back Benches are desperate for the Secretary of State to give us more confidence that we will massively increase trade with the Commonwealth, but I think he is wise not to do so. India, Australia and Canada collectively account for less than 5% of our exports, and research shows that the most enduring statistic is that trade halves whenever the distance between nations doubles. Is it not foolhardy for us to be turning away from our closest trading partners and relying on increasing trade with countries so very far away? The Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade (Dr Liam Fox): I am sorry to hear such a lack of understanding of how the modern economy works. Particularly for countries that have a large proportion of their trade in services, services trade does not depend on distance. In fact, what we need is increasingly close co-operation with countries that are similar to us in their economic status, not necessarily geographically proximate, although I entirely understand that for goods the geographical distance does have a greater bearing. Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con): I thank the Minister for his response and congratulate him on that work. I was in Brazil last November and have had many meetings with His Excellency the Brazilian ambassador to London, and while Brazil has not been able to achieve a trade deal with the European Union, it very much looks forward to one with the UK. So can the Minister expedite such arrangements as quickly as possible? The Minister for Trade and Investment (Greg Hands): I congratulate my hon. Friend on his work with the all-party group on Brazil in the last Parliament, and he makes the good point that we do not need to have a free trade agreement to have free trade. Indeed, as I am sure he knows, the EU has no free trade agreement with the world’s largest markets such as the US, China, India and, indeed, Brazil. So there are many trade barriers that we can address without having a formal free trade agreement. This is very much our approach in Brazil, as seen by our joint committee talks and my own visit in March. Extracts from Commons debate on Exiting the European Union and Global Trade The Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade (Dr Liam Fox):...The Department has been trying to talk to Governments such as India’s who have very high tariffs against Scotch whisky, which is not good for their own consumers because it encourages an illicit trade. I encourage all those Governments to indulge liberally in the pleasures of single malt—as I do myself......The Leader of the Opposition has accused the Prime Minister of following “free trade dogma”. He went on to say that this has often been pursued at the expense of the world’s most fragile economies. In fact, any economist worth their salt can see that free trade has been one of the most potent liberators of the world’s poor. Let us take India as a specific example. In 1993, about 45% of India’s population sat below the poverty line as defined by the World Bank. By 2011, it was 22%—too many, but a phenomenal achievement. It is no coincidence that, in the intervening period, India had embraced globalisation and started to liberalise its economy. It is hard to imagine an international aid programme—even one as generous as our own—that would or could have been so effective on its own... Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab):...An industrial strategy and international trade White Paper should have come together precisely because of the interdependence of trade, job creation, and economic growth. That makes Labour Members fearful that the Government have not done the proper assessment of the danger that future trade arrangements could pose for job losses and wage depression. The Government have put the cart before the horse. A trade White Paper should set out what the UK’s future policy on trade defence instruments will be. The EU currently has in place a series of trade defence measures, such as anti-dumping measures against China—and, to a lesser degree, India and Malaysia—on steel, other metals, and solar panels. The UK has famously opposed such measures at the EU. Now that we will be able to set our own trade policy, the Government must tell us whether they will stick to that line. If they do not plan to introduce trade defence measures, they need to set out whether and how they will protect and support sensitive sectors such as the steel industry and the solar panel industry from cheap imports. The Government must also weigh whether they can afford to take a tough stance with countries like China and India with which they will be looking to conclude trade deals—or will they sell out our steel sector and others? The UK steel sector is in an existential crisis. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, who chaired the all-party parliamentary group on steel, and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock), who launched the “Steel 2020” report earlier this year alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley), expressed outrage at the Government’s leaked memo that suggested steel would not be a priority industry post Brexit, threatening to destroy the very livelihoods of communities across England and south Wales.. Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP):...The Secretary of State alluded in his opening comments to trade deals with countries such as India, particularly on whisky. Are he and his colleagues not concerned that when the Foreign Secretary visited India recently he was advised that: “Mobility issues are of importance to us; we cannot separate free movement of people from the free flow of goods, services and investments”.
Trade agreements are about give and take. The Government, the
Ministers on the Front Bench and others who have spoken do not
seem to understand that concept...
The Minister has heard from many contributors this afternoon
about the importance of freedom of movement. He will have been
lobbied by a series of companies and organisations across the
board about their concerns over the impact of restricting freedom
of movement. He will have heard from companies that innovate, and
from companies similar to the one in my constituency that is
worried that it cannot gain access to engineers from the UK,
because we simply do not have enough of them, and that the number
of engineers from the European Union, on whom it relies, is
already decreasing because those people are seeking opportunities
elsewhere. Such companies know that it will cost them more to
secure engineers from outside the European Union because they
will have to pay visa costs. That is already happening with the
recruitment of nurses. My local hospital is no longer recruiting
nurses from the European Union because they do not want to come
here, partly because of the fall in the value of the pound.
Instead, it is securing nurses from India and the Philippines. However, it is
now having to pay roughly £1,000 per visa for each of those
nurses—a cost that it did not have to meet for nurses from the
EU....
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