Date: 2023-04-17
Kemi Badenoch: I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. I know it must be difficult to sit on the Opposition Front Bench and find a way to celebrate while we agree this fantastic trade deal. The Labour Front Bench look like they have been sucking lemons. I am thrilled to be able to answer pretty much all his questions. First, the right hon. Gentleman claims that this deal has happened at the expense of the India free trade agreement, but I stood at this Dispatch Box and told him that it is about the deal not the day. I know the Labour Front Bench would like us to rush into a deal that does not get the best for this country so that they have something to criticise, but we are not going to do that. We are going to negotiate a free trade agreement that is of mutual benefit and meets the needs of both UK and Indian citizens. The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that we have not got a US FTA, but that is because the US is not doing FTAs with any countries; this has nothing to do specifically with the UK. When Administrations change, we cannot control what the partner country wants to do. So instead of just moaning, we have got on and  signed memorandums of understanding with US states. Indeed, the Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) is not here today because he is on a plane to Oklahoma to sign such a deal. I am pleased to let the House know that. The right hon. Gentleman talks about a quid pro quo, and this is absolutely right. One trade lesson 101 that I would like to give him is: you cannot agree a trade deal where you get everything you want and tell the people on the other side that they can have nothing. If he has a formula for negotiating a deal where we can sell everything to other countries and they cannot sell anything to us, he should come to the Floor of the House and explain how that can be done. A quid pro quo means having a deal that is of mutual benefit: we open our markets and they open theirs. When the legal text is done and we sign the agreement, there will be plenty of time to scrutinise--[Interruption.] He is chuntering from a sedentary position, "What is it? What is it?". I would like him to read the statement or listen to it. We have said that 99% of goods will be tariff-free. That is something that we have negotiated across all parties. We have also talked about what we get from rules of origin. The right hon. Gentleman was clearly listening to me on the radio when he heard me dispute the 0.08% figure. That is not because the figure is wrong; it is because it is doing something different from what he thinks it is doing. It is a model, not a forecast. What we do with models is quite different from what we do with forecasts. The model he is touting at the moment is not tailored for the specific behaviour and dynamics of the UK economy, it uses data from 2014 and it excludes growth in the membership of the bloc to those who have applied. So what we should not look at is the 0.08% figure, as it is purely a measure of what would happen if we did not have this trade deal--that is how the model works, and models are not forecasts. Instead, I ask him to focus on the facts, which I have repeated time and time again: the global middle class is going to be coming from the Indo-Pacific; we are talking about 500 million consumers; and by 2050, it is going to outstrip the European Union. We are getting in from the ground up and we are going to be shaping the future of the UK for future generations. This is not about trying to grow trade in the next five minutes. I have used the example previously, but this is like investing in a start-up and complaining that it is not brought any money in as soon as you have signed the agreement. We are thinking about the future, not the past. The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned what we are doing for the agricultural sector, and I point to what the National Farmers Union said. We know that British farming is not going to succeed unless we can export. We have created an exporting deal; this is not just about the exports, but the services. All of that is going to benefit farmers and the agricultural sector, to the point that the NFU has come out to support this deal. I hope that Opposition Members can do that, even though it was us who negotiated it. I would like it if they would think about the country and not just about party politics.