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**Hugh** · 29-06-2022, 18:01

https://committees.parliament.uk/com...ustralia-deal/

Quote:

Committee calls on Government to delay ratification of Australia deal

The International Trade Committee calls on the Government to delay the ratification of the UK’s trade deal with Australia to enable additional scrutiny of the agreement.

International agreements must be brought before Parliament under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, which gives MPs 21 sitting days to scrutinise the deal. Earlier this month, the Government triggered this process, despite previously committing there would be “sufficient time for relevant Select Committees to produce reports” beforehand.

In the first of two reports on the trade deal, the cross-party Committee of MPs concludes that, by failing to uphold this commitment, the Government has shown great discourtesy to Parliament.

The Committee calls on the Government to extend the 21-day period to give MPs more time to examine the advantages and disadvantages of the agreement. Should they fail to do so, the Committee recommends that MPs vote against ratification, which would extend the scrutiny period.

The report follows eight requests for the Secretary of State to agree a date to answer MPs’ questions on the deal. The Committee outlines that these delays have hampered its ability to conduct timely analysis, as it calls for the Secretary of State to commit to giving oral evidence on trade agreements before triggering the Parliamentary scrutiny period in future.

The MPs argue that any potential disadvantages of the deal could be overlooked or disregarded if the Government ratifies it too hastily. The Committee calls for MPs to be given the opportunity to debate the agreement – and vote on it – in the coming weeks.

The Committee also stresses the importance of being able to respond properly to the Government’s statutory ‘section 42 report’, which outlines how a trade agreement affects health, animal welfare and the environment. The MPs repeat their call for a guaranteed ‘window’ of 15 sitting days between the publication of this report and the triggering of the statutory scrutiny process. This would give the Committee time to take the Government’s report fully into account before publishing its own report on the agreement.

Quote:

The Committee was due to question the Secretary of State for International Trade, Rt. Hon. Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP, on the UK-Australia free trade agreement at 10am on Wednesday 29 June but it was cancelled at short notice.