Contributions
1,122 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (First sitting)Q A former Exports Minister in the Department for International Trade said that the Government were not doing enough to help exporters. Is that a view you share, or was he just…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (First sitting)Q As I understand it, one of the key concerns for businesses bidding for Government contracts overseas or domestically—often when they have to invest huge amounts of money in…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (First sitting)Fair enough. Thank you very much, Mr Cooke.12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)Q My last question is this. The Government have sold the benefits of the two FTAs as partly being about the huge, new, billion pounds-worth of Government procurement options that…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)Q Thank you very much for being willing to give evidence to us. In the evidence that you gave to the Select Committee on International Trade and the International Agreements…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)Q That is extremely helpful, professor. I wonder, though, whether you could bring what you have said to life a little more with two examples. Let me give the example of High Speed…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)Q Thank you, Ms Crawford, for being willing to give evidence to the Committee. We are focusing on the procurement chapters of the Bill. The Government have told us that they will…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)Q To pursue this a bit further, as I understand it from what you are saying, the GPA includes every country that is still in the European Union—the French, the Italians and so…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)Q As I understand it, these agreements are going to be superseded by, on the one hand, the Procurement Bill coming down the line and, on the other hand, the comprehensive and…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)Q What you appear to have just said is that there are significant differences between the procurement chapter under the Australian FTA and the one under the New Zealand FTA. Is…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)Q Okay. You touched on the issue of investment protection. I am not experienced enough in procurement to be able to reprise exactly the line you took, but you mentioned the…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)Q The last question I wanted to ask was about the impact assessment, where the Government claimed that there would be an extra £10 billion of procurement opportunities for British…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)Q Very lastly, as I understand it the £10 billion figure is an Australian estimate anyway, albeit that the UK Government claim that they have checked it out and, remarkably, think…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)Q Thank you very much, Ms Crawford. You mentioned that the Procurement Bill could supplant the Trade (New Zealand and Australia) Bill. Legislation to implement accession to the…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)Q Some of our other witnesses, particularly those representing farming organisations, raised concerns about the scrutiny of trade deals. When we start line-by-line scrutiny next…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)Q You said in your earlier evidence that the previous Secretary of State had promised to include the TUC in private discussions about free trade agreements, presumably including…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)I do not know whether it is in order, Chair, but to save time for the Committee next week, I wonder whether the Minister might want to reassure the TUC representative that the…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)Q Ministers have told us that this is a brilliant pair of deals, and the procurement chapters particularly so. Is there any way in which the deals could have been improved? Miles…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)Q Do you think those differences are there because the Australia deal was a bit rushed, or because of inexperienced negotiators? Explain why you think the difference is there.…12 Oct 2022HANSARDTrade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)Q The former Exports Minister said that there was not enough support for British exporters from the Department in which he had worked. That was back in July. Do you share the…12 Oct 2022