16:57 Kerry McCarthy (Labour)

There are a few general points of concern that I want to raise about our future trading relationships and the way in which trade deals and rules can affect people involved in the sectors in which I am interested. In 2014, I visited El Salvador to look at the impact of climate change on its farmers. I was told how its Government’s efforts to promote native seeds and more traditional, organic forms of farming had been thwarted because following the central America free trade agreement, they were unable to stop Monsanto peddling its wares. That raises concerns in my mind about what will happen when products come on the market that we do not have the power to reject post deal, even if we manage to carve out concessions when we negotiate trade agreements now.

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17:46 Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)

I know that the Bill is not about the US-UK relationship at the moment, but the Minister and the Secretary of State have mentioned CETA, which already enables certain changes to occur. There is a real risk that we will take on some of these problems. Indeed, there is a real risk that we will lose out on opportunities that the EU is creating, particularly in the trade relationship with Japan. That trade relationship will involve 600 million people and comprise 30% of the world’s GDP. The Europeans have built in environmental conditions, particularly through the Paris agreement, and other rights and protections that we enjoy in the EU, and the real problem is that downstream, due to both changing the existing bilateral relationships and as part of future trade relationships, the protections and rights we enjoy through our trade relationships in the EU will be bargained away. Whether it is human rights, environmental rights or consumer rights, those things are now inadvertently on the table, and that table is under the cloak of darkness, as there will not be public scrutiny.

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18:09 Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)

The kind of framework that we need would include, for example, the requirement for impact assessments to be conducted before negotiating or renegotiating a trade agreement. Those impact assessments should not be limited just to economics; they should cover social, environmental and human rights aspects and, crucially, they should be published. The public should be consulted about the potential deal, as is required in the US. If the decision is to go ahead, Parliament should be required to give its consent to a mandate for the negotiations, a procedure that could build on the model in Denmark. The Government should conduct negotiations transparently, releasing texts before and after each negotiating round, building on the procedures in the EU and following practices that are common in other areas of international negotiation, such as the climate talks.

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