Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership — House of Commons, 2015-12-10
Topic: Foreign Trade
Daniel Stephen Zeichner (Labour, Centre-left): I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) and the Backbench Business Committee for initiating this important debate TTIP may not be on the lips of everyone in every constituency, but there is great interest in it in my constituency, so much so that during the general election campaign, when I was pleased to be joined on the campaign trail by the wife of the then Leader of the Opposition, she was absolutely amazed to find that the inhabitants of the first three houses whose doors we knocked on all wanted to talk to her about TTIP. I think she went away appreciating that Cambridge is a very special city indeed. Such is the interest in the city that we have had a series of public meetings, one of which I organised. I was very pleased to welcome my colleagues Richard Howitt and Lucy Anderson, who are both Members of the European Parliament, to help throw light on what for many people is still a deeply opaque process Of course, I agree with other hon. Members that trade agreements are important, but they are also intricate and complicated, perhaps inevitably so. For many of our citizens they seem very remote, and they are often negotiated under wraps. Even to those of us who are following the detail, TTIP can seem fiendishly complex, but it is so important that it cannot be ignored, which is why we must keep asking questions and make sure that they are answered to our satisfaction As other hon. Members have pointed out, of course we are in favour of trade agreements. They bring significant benefits and boost trade and growth, and they should secure and create jobs, bring down costs and extend choice for consumers. The Government tell us that an ambitious agreement could add as much as £10 billion annually to the UK economy in the long term, which would be good for jobs and good for consumers. That would, indeed, be welcome, but those economic benefits are contested, and I suspect that, in truth, the reality is that there is simply no way of knowing for sure at this stage what the potential gains may be. We should beware of hyperbole. We need to be able to weigh the possible benefits against the possible risks, which is why the Government should assess, in a transparent, comprehensive manner, what the real economic impact might be. I understand the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee has recommended that this assessment should set out the potential benefits and risks on a sector-by-sector basis, which would probably provide much sought-after clarity There are many concerns about TTIP, and they have been well rehearsed in this debate. I share with many hon. Friends the concerns about the impact on public services, particularly the national health service. The investor-state dispute settlement mechanism might gift transnational corporations the power to sue countries for profits that have been lost as a result of that country’s policy decisions. There is a very real fear that the inclusion of the ISDS mechanism will prevent a future Labour Government from reversing the Health and Social Care Act 2012 in England owing to the fear of the cost of legal challenges they may face.