1Introduction
1.The UK currently benefits from the terms of a number of trade agreements, and other trade-related agreements, that the EU has with countries outside the Union. Giving evidence to our predecessor committee in February 2017, the Secretary of State for International Trade said that his department’s second priority, after establishing the UK’s position at the World Trade Organization (WTO), was “to see a transition of their agreements to a UK agreement at the point that we leave the EU”.1 The purpose of our inquiry has been to scrutinise the Government’s performance in pursuing this policy.
2.In this Report, we first consider, in Chapter 2, the trade agreements to which the EU is currently a party, and conduct a brief assessment of the policy of the Government to “roll over” these agreements. In Chapter 3 we consider the Government’s approach to roll-over, including the legal options; and in Chapter 4 we consider the Government’s policy for applying the agreements during the post-Brexit implementation period. In Chapter 5 we set out the issues the Government will need to resolve before achieving roll-over of these agreements; and in Chapter 6 we address the issues posed by implementing rolled over agreements. Finally, in Chapter 7 we discuss the need for a cross-government approach to roll-over.
3.While our predecessor committee used the term “grandfathering” to refer to this issue, we have avoided using it in this report as, strictly speaking, this term would mean “that the existing treaties just continue to apply to the UK after leaving the Union without there being any need for renegotiation or agreement by the other party to the agreement”,2 which is neither the Government’s policy nor a legal possibility. While there appears to be no term that is both perfectly accurate and concise, we have throughout referred to “roll-over” of the agreements unless discussing an approach described by the Government using a different term.3
4.During the course of our inquiry we took oral evidence from 13 witnesses, including the Minister of State for Trade Policy, Rt Hon Greg Hands MP, at four evidence sessions. In addition, we received 20 submissions of written evidence. We would like to thank all of those who took the trouble to provide us with evidence.
1 International Trade Committee, First Report of Session 2016–17, UK trade options beyond 2019, HC 817, para 172
3 “Roll-over” appears to have been coined by the former Minister of State for Trade Policy, Lord Price. The term “transitional adoption” is used (in inverted commas) in accordance with the Government’s own usage to refer to its particular approach to rolling over EU trade agreements. It should be noted that the Government has also recently coined a further term: “trade agreements continuity”.
Published: 6 March 2018