UK Parliament / Open data

Trade Bill

Proceeding contribution from Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Labour) in the House of Lords on Wednesday, 6 March 2019. It occurred during Debate on bills on Trade Bill.

I have a private joke with the former Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, that there is a small and declining number of people in this House with an interest in intellectual property, and that we used to gather to discuss arcane issues using incomprehensible language to our hearts’ content. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is clearly a member of that group, and there are one or two others. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, who is unfortunately not in her place, has joined the group recently. I say that because the discussion of the WTO tariff rate is coming down to that rather narrow group of people who have a deep knowledge of and fascination for the issues and are interested in exploring them, but are frustrated by the fact that the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill, on which we should have had the chance to discuss the points so ably made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, was held back from us by procedural rules and went through without much debate. We are therefore having to invent a way of getting into that discussion.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has done a great service to the House by going through some of the very intricate and complicated issues around setting tariffs and rates and how you play the game against the very complicated rules of the WTO. He does it, however, from a position of knowledge and experience that, I am afraid, will be frustrated again tonight, because there is not the will in the House to go through it in detail. Indeed, I tabled an amendment a week or two ago—when I thought there would be more time to discuss these things—on the prospect of the GSP tariff rates, setting and mechanisms. He is right that there are broader issues around those that we should discuss. However, this is not the time—and we do not have the time—to go into the detail, so I will not press my Amendment 14, which comes later, because the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has raised the same points in a broader context. I hope that the Minister will respond briefly to the points raised, so that some of the issues that need to be on the record are on the record, but perhaps we should save some of the more detailed issues for another day.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

796 c659 

Session

2017-19

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber

Legislation

Trade Bill 2017-19
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