Campaign Response – Trade Bill

I have received a huge amount of campaign emails from constituents regarding the Trade Bill. I cannot respond individually to all of them due to the vast volume that I have received which is why I am doing a blog post.

I voted for the Bill and voted down the amendments put forward. I wanted to explain my reasons which you can see below:

Regarding scrutiny, Parliament will retain, through the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act (CRAG), the right to block any treaty from being ratified. Free Trade Agreements cannot change UK law. Parliament will retain the right to reject any domestic implementing legislation necessary for a trade treaty. By blocking any legislation, should it be required, it can also block ratification. This is in line with similar systems such as Canada. It goes further than countries such as Australia and New Zealand, where Parliament cannot directly block ratification of a trade treaty. Any trade treaty will be made public before ratification, Parliament will be able to act should it choose to do so having seen all the draft text. Government has committed, where time allows, for a report to be drafted by the relevant committee before ratification takes place to allow for independent scrutiny.

The EU and US are not comparable to the UK. In EU UK Parliament could simply be overruled by majority in European Parliament and QMV in the European Council. In the US, this is a separation of powers system where Congress retains control through the Constitution and delegates to the Executive.

On food standards, the Government has consistently been clear that it will not compromise on our standards. Our manifesto, to which we were all elected individually and collectively, is clear that in all our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards. We remain firmly committed to upholding our high environmental, food safety and animal welfare standards outside the EU and the EU Withdrawal Act will transfer all existing EU food safety provisions, including existing export requirements, onto the UK statute book. These import standards include a ban on using artificial growth hormones in domestic and imported products and set out that no products, other than potable water, are approved to decontaminate poultry carcases. Decisions on these standards are a matter for the UK and will be made separately from any trade agreement.

All imports must meet our strict food safety standards. All food safety will be carried over into UK law when we leave the transition period. Parliament retains final say over such standards, it can block any changes should it wish to do so. Amendments demanding that all agricultural imports meet our domestic production standards could have negative effects for UK food supply, UK food manufacturers who rely on imports, the price of goods in the shops and the ability of developing countries to sell to the UK.

Regarding the NHS, it is not, it has never been and it never will be up for sale in any form of trade negotiations.