I congratulate the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) on securing this debate.
As the right hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, politicians the world over were at great pains to avoid the policy mistakes that followed the banking collapse of the 1930s. Conventional Keynesian pump-priming was continually invoked as the means of preventing a recession from turning into a depression. Depressingly, rather less interest seemed to be given to the equally important lessons that the 1929 to 1933 era taught us about protectionism. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which raised tariffs drastically on goods that were imported into the United States in a bid to protect American jobs from foreign competition. That Act sparked a domino effect among America’s trading partners, who predictably imposed similar measures to protect their own economies. The result, as we all know, was a terrific slump in world trade that devastated economic growth and caused unemployment to soar. Only the ensuing second world war helped to get the global economy on its feet again.
In 2010, as growth remained elusive, I wrote and spoke in this House of my deep concern that we might see a new wave of protectionist measures being introduced by politicians who were under pressure to protect domestic markets. The House might recall the defensive, almost nationalistic tone of the debate as Kraft’s hostile takeover of Cadbury was going through, particularly from the Opposition Benches. I called at that time for political leadership to make the case strongly for the massive benefits of free trade and to break down the remaining barriers.
It is in that context that I am heartened, four years on, by the enthusiasm with which the transatlantic trade and investment partnership has been embraced by policy makers.