We all deserve proper answers about the trade deals the UK signs

With the UK now sitting in isolation outside of the EU, Boris Johnson is hoping the rest of the world will open its doors to UK businesses.

The prime minister’s trade secretary is sent across oceans to negotiate new deals to make up for the loss of trade with our neighbours in Europe. Regardless, the UK will not have free trade with anyone but instead “bureaucratic” trade, as paperwork is required to comply with any new trade agreement, or else pay the tariffs.

On Wednesday morning, the International Trade Select Committee will be questioning the current trade secretary - Anne-Marie Trevelyan. She has a lot of questions to answer: What is the government’s overarching strategy for international trade? Why has UK trade, as a percentage of GDP, fallen by more than any other G7 country? What is her department doing to minimise potential food shortages caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? What are the positive and negative impacts of the recently-signed deals with Australia and New Zealand?

This final question forms a key part of our work as a Committee. We are asking the Trade and Agriculture Commission (TAC) - which assesses the impact of trade agreements on individuals, businesses and farmers in the UK - and the secretary of state herself about the consequences of these deals. Asking questions in public so that we can hear about the impact of these decisions on stakeholders, and to hold the government to account, is a core part of our role as a select committee.

According to official estimates, the agreement with Australia is expected to add just 0.08 per cent to the UK’s GDP during the next 15 years. New Zealand will bring somewhere between 0.01 per cent and 0.03 per cent to the UK’s GDP in the same period. These figures are fractions of the Brexit damage - a damage 490 times greater than the worst-case scenario from a New Zealand trade deal.

Don’t get me wrong – increased trade with our friends and allies is valuable and worthwhile, especially given the fact that the UK has opted to so damage its economic prospects with Brexit. But what are the costs of these agreements? What has the government potentially traded off to secure a deal? Which groups will lose out? Will food security feature at all?

Trade agreements run to thousands of pages of legal text, yet when the government brings an agreement to parliament, MPs will have just 21 sitting days in which to scrutinise the deal.

That’s why the work of our committee is so important. In order for MPs to meaningfully debate these deals, we have been collecting evidence from about the benefits and drawbacks, and we will be taking into account the TAC’s advice, and the government’s response to it.

On this final point, disappointingly, Anne-Marie Trevelyan is being particularly obstructive. Despite repeated cross-party calls from the Commons and the Lords, the secretary of state refuses to confirm that our Committee will be able to publish our analysis of the agreement before MPs come to consider it. This directly contradicts a promise made to the Speaker of the Commons that we would have sufficient time to publish our findings.

Trevelyan’s attempts to operate behind a smokescreen look like she is running scared of scrutiny. And, on top of that, her department is disrespecting Parliament – it’s not just myself and my committee who are saying this.

The International Trade Committee, which is made up of politicians from across the political divide, must be able to assess trade deals with all the evidence available in front of us, and before MPs are asked to consider the deal.

Rather than play hide and seek, the trade secretary should open up her department to sensible scrutiny.

Trade agreements have impacts on individuals and businesses up and down the country. For their sake, let’s hope the secretary of state is prepared to answer our questions.

Angus Brendan MacNeil is chair of the International Trade Select Committee and the SNP MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar