I have already said that we give high priority to those standards, including animal welfare standards. That has been an essential part of what the Government have set out. I know that it would be advantageous for the Opposition if that were not the Government’s position, and they would like it not to be our position so that they could attack it, but we want to maintain our high standards of consumer products, our high environmental standards, our high standard of labour law protection and our high animal welfare standards as part of our approach to global trade. I am not sure that I could be clearer but, no matter how often the Government restate
their position, there are those who do not want it to be our position and who want to interpret it in a completely different way.
The Asia Pacific region will be a key engine of global growth in the 21st century. That means that the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, or CPTPP, is a key interest for the United Kingdom as we leave the European Union. It is an extraordinarily global free trade agreement, spanning 11 countries on four continents: Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Peru. Those 11 countries are collectively home to around 500 million people, constituting some 13% of global GDP and more than £95 billion-worth of current UK trade. If the UK were to accede to it, we would be the second-largest economic member within the agreement, which would then cover a sixth, or 17%, of global GDP—nearly equal to the EU minus the UK.
There has been a positive response across CPTPP members to the Prime Minister’s announcement of the UK’s interest in potential accession. In particular, it has been welcomed by both the Japanese and Australian Prime Ministers.