Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 11:52 am on 24 June 2021.

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Photo of Emily Thornberry Emily Thornberry Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade 11:52, 24 June 2021

My hon. Friend makes a good point that Ministers should remember a little more actively.

The Government are joining the agreement with no ambition to improve its deficiencies, no attempt to deal with its threats and no effort to make it work in Britain’s interests. The trouble is that, when someone goes into a negotiation looking as if they are willing to accept anything in the deal, they come across to the other party as if they will do anything to get it. That brings me to the second quote, by the Secretary of State’s Australian counterpart, Dan Tehan. He said of the recent negotiations:

“We’ve been very clear with the UK that… they’ll need a gold standard FTA with us if they’re going to have a realistic chance of joining the CPTPP” because

“We have a very large say in what accession looks like”.

There it is: the man the Secretary of State threatened with an uncomfortable chair ended up holding her over a barrel.

Let us look at the consequences. As the price for UK access to the CPTPP and the 0.017% that will be added to GDP, the Secretary of State was willing to accept every single demand from Australia when it came to tariff-free, quota-free access for their cheap and cruelly produced meat.