Trade with 70 nations risks falling off a cliff
edge if the Government does not act quickly to roll
over EU trade deals, the International Trade Committee has
found. A report by the Committee calls on the
Department for International Trade to produce "a legally
watertight and practically viable strategy" to
achieve "transitional adoption" of trade agreements the
UK is currently party to through its membership of the European
Union.
The Government still needs to work out a number of
important details before continuity can be achieved –
and businesses, consumers, investors need certainty on what
will happen to the trade deals as a matter of
urgency.
In its assessment of the Government's work to date, and
the key tasks which lie ahead, the Committee has
concluded:
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The exact number of EU trade and
trade-related agreements appears to be a matter
of some uncertainty. The Committee
concluded that there is an urgent need for clarity
over the number, type, scope, extent and importance of the EU's
trade-related agreements.
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DIT has identified rolling over EU trade
agreements as its
second highest priority and taken up the task at
ministerial level, but there is still a disturbing
lack of precision and clarity about the appropriate legal
mechanism.
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The Committee welcomes the Government's
new approach of asking that the UK be
treated during the post-Brexit
transition as if it were still an EU member for
the purposes of these agreements. But this is
seen by the Committee as a tacit
admission by the Government that its initial policy
of negotiating new agreements by March 2019 may not be
achieved. The Government is urged to ensure that
appropriate resources are allocated to the task of rolling over
the agreements.
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Substantive amendments to rolled-over
trade agreements will almost certainly be
required, as the Government itself
has effectively acknowledged.
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The Committee recommends that the Government
should set out provisions for more extensive
parliamentary scrutiny and enhanced involvement
by the devolved
administrations where substantial changes in
trade agreements are implemented through
legislation.
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A cross-departmental
approach on the part of the Government to all of
the above issues, which involves DIT, the Brexit
department and the devolved administrations (among others)
is urgently needed.
Launching the report, Committee Chair MP
commented:
"The Government is making much of the trade agreements it
plans to make after Brexit, but first it needs to give us
confidence that the existing agreements, on
which businesses, consumers and trading partners alike rely,
can be rolled over so the UK can benefit in its own
right. Unless an agreement is reached with our
trading partners in the coming months, a significant
economic price will have to be paid.
"The Government is therefore correct to have
identified maintaining our rights under these agreements
as a priority. However, as the Committee has found over the
course of our inquiry, a number of thorny
issues and significant risks remain unaddressed.
The Government must not be naïve enough to assume
that a verbal agreement to maintain the status
quo constitutes a watertight guarantee – contingency
plans are required.
"Our report makes a number of practical recommendations,
including the publication of a detailed timetable for avoiding a
cliff-edge, and the development of a risk register in relation to
trade and trade-related agreements that need to be rolled
over. This issue requires a cross-Government
response, and a fully transparent, cross-departmental approach to
constructing the UK's overall long-term trade
policy strategy."
