I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who takes an interest in these issues, for his intervention. Not only would I like to see those maintained, but I would like to see us use our greater freedom to enhance them. For example, I would like to see a greater convergence of our trade and our development policies; I would like to see us use outward direct investment to help some of the poorest countries develop the ability to add value to their primary commodities; and I would like then for us to be able to use our freedoms in tariff policy to be able to reduce those tariffs on those value-added goods. It cannot be right that countries that produce coffee or fish are penalised for roasting their coffee beans or canning their fish when they try to sell them into our markets. By bringing those two elements together, we would be able to bring enormous benefit and enable people to trade their way to prosperity, rather than being as dependent on our aid policies as they are today. I am grateful to colleagues on both sides of the House who have come forward to us with proposals on that, because I think that we could find a strong bipartisan consensus in this country to be able to do some of that work.
Future Free Trade Agreements
Proceeding contribution from
Liam Fox
(Conservative)
in the House of Commons on Thursday, 21 February 2019.
It occurred during Debate on Future Free Trade Agreements.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
654 c1621 
Session
2017-19
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Subjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2019-02-22 16:19:54 +0000
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