Deliver the Deal
We left the EU in January this year, and with a deal (the Withdrawal Agreement). Along with the majority of parliamentarians, I voted for this deal and thus did everything in my power to avoid no deal whilst honouring the mandate of the Referendum, European elections, and two general elections.
The Government has since been working to agree a comprehensive trade deal with the EU, to take effect upon our exit from the transition period. The UK is seeking a deal that reflects our status as an independent sovereign state and which is based on free trade.
Following the European Council in October, the European Commission’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, acknowledged the need to work intensively, that movement in the negotiations is needed from both sides if agreement is to be reached and that the EU is negotiating with a sovereign country. The UK negotiating team is working with the EU to see if it is possible to bridge the remaining gaps in our positions. Negotiations are taking place daily, if required, including at weekends, across all negotiating streams concurrently and on the basis of each side’s legal texts.
The Government wants a deal, as do I, but you cannot enter negotiations saying you must have a deal as it undermines your negotiating leverage. If you tell someone whose house you want to buy that you will definitely buy it under any circumstances, you will not get a good price! Instead one has to make clear that you are prepared to walk away if the deal is not good enough. This is what the UK has done, and if this is still not enough to make the EU reconsider its current offer – the terms of which we could never accept – then Government will have my support in leaving without an overarching trade deal. We cannot be stuck in negotiating limbo forever.
I am confident we will get a deal, not least because it is in both sides’ interest to have one. But the UK will leave the transition period at the end of the year with or without a further agreement, and I am certain that we will prosper as an independent nation either way.
New Clause 4 - Trade Bill
I do appreciate your strength of feeling about NC4 and I agree with you about the importance of effective Parliamentary scrutiny, of trade deals or otherwise. I do not, however, believe that the provisions outlined in NC4 are necessary – hence why I declined to support it.
At its heart, the Trade Bill is a continuity Bill: it cannot be used to implement new free trade agreements with countries such as the US. Instead, it can only be used to transition the free trade agreements that the UK has been party to through EU membership. All these agreements have already been subject to ample scrutiny, through the European Scrutiny Committee process or equivalent.
Regarding future trade agreements, public consultations have and will continue to be held prior to negotiations to inform the Government's approach. Ministers have also published their negotiating objectives prior to the start of trade talks and held open briefings for MPs and Peers. Regular updates are provided to Parliament on the progress of negotiations too and I know that my Ministerial colleagues at the Department for International Trade will also be engaging closely with the International Trade Committee and the Lords International Agreements Committee as negotiations progress.
The Government has also made repeatedly clear that where necessary it will bring forward primary legislation to implement new free trade agreements, which will be debated and scrutinised by Parliament in the usual way.
Overall, I believe this approach strikes an appropriate balance. It respects the UK constitution, ensuring that the Government can negotiate in the best interests of the UK, while making sure that Parliament has the information it needs to effectively scrutinise and lend its expertise to trade policy. Please be assured that in voting against NC4 no powers of scrutiny have been surrendered or weakened.
Extending the Brexit transition period
I am not in favour of extending the transition. Indeed, the time for that decision has now passed.
I am sure many will be familiar with Parkinson’s Law – that the time taken to complete a task expands to fill the time available to do it. That is especially true of negotiations; extending deadlines does not change the likely outcome, merely its timing. The only way to conclude negotiations is to have clear deadlines that both sides respect. None of the negotiating positions have changed and so I cannot see any argument to extend. It will have no impact on the likelihood or not of getting a deal. We will just be in the same position, but at a later date.
All an extension will do is extend the period of uncertainty, which is so damaging to business. It is vitally important that businesses have a solid understanding of what our future trading partnerships will be, so they can plan and move forwards. This is a view echoed by the Confederation of British Industry.
For the reasons outlined above, it is more important than ever that free trade agreements are put in place with partners around the world as soon as possible.
Amendment NC17 - Trade Bill
Although I support the objective of the amendment, I opposed it because it was not required and was indeed inappropriate, for two reasons. Firstly, it was completely irrelevant to the Bill and out of scope of it. The Trade Bill that we voted on cannot be used to implement future trade deals. Instead it was about rolling over existing trade agreements that we are already party to, from the EU to the UK. Since the NHS is not included in any existing trade agreements, it also isn’t in any of these rolled-over trade agreements, and it is simply scaremongering to suggest that it is. So the clause was totally irrelevant. The Trade Bill was also about crystallising the government’s commitment to democratic transparency in all future deals. I fully support the government’s desire to give Parliament an opportunity to scrutinise the negotiating objectives of future deals.
My second reason for opposing the amendment is that the government has already committed time and again to ensuring the NHS is not on the table in any trade deal. The Conservative manifesto upon which I and colleagues were elected is clear: ‘When we are negotiating trade deals, the NHS will not be on the table. The price the NHS pays for drugs will not be on the table. The services the NHS provides will not be on the table.’ It is well within the government’s powers under international law to specify that public services such as the NHS are not for sale, meaning this is already covered by law. I would add that twenty of these continuity deals have already been agreed without this amendment in place – and not one has contained provisions for the privatisation of the NHS.
This NC17 amendment is the latest in a recent trend of opposition parties tabling superfluous amendments calling for various measures which they know full well are either entirely inappropriate or already in place, such as attempting to legislate for weekly testing numbers when such decisions should rightly be for clinicians rather than legislators. This wastes taxpayers’ money and Members’ valuable time when they could otherwise be serving constituents. Legislation and democratic processes should not be cheapened for the sake of political headlines. It also has the unfortunate, and probably intended, effect of completely unnecessarily scaring voters.
Finally, just because something has a good objective it does not mean that any particular way of achieving that objective is right or appropriate. As a metaphor, I would vote against a complete ban on all cars, but that does not mean I am opposed to reducing car accidents. It is just I do not believe that banning all cars is the best way to reduce accidents.
You can rest assured: the NHS is not for sale.
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