It is a point of economic principle that such things will occur if we do not have proper rights or regulations installed, or the appropriate sanctions when anything takes place. At the moment, those are not contained in the treaty. One member state can challenge another for failing to uphold labour rights, but, as we have seen time and again across various treaties, it is notoriously difficult to prove that such failure has affected trade. To challenge those labour practices, we have to demonstrate the effect on trade, but, under current provisions, that is almost impossible to do.
The International Trade Union Confederation has rightly pointed to the ability of states to buy their way out of issues via dispute settlement, as the amount of compensation has been calculated time and again as a fraction of the violation’s impact on trade. So the sanctions do not work, and they will not work under this treaty.
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The ineffectual nature of the labour rights chapter is demonstrated by the fact that, since the agreement’s conclusion in 2018, no Government have challenged another for abusing labour rights. It is not working. So again, if the Government are not going to accept this new clause, I just hope a future Government will consider the issue and that we will then be able to raise it with the CPTPP partner countries through the formal review process, so that labour protections can eventually be significantly strengthened. That may well come under a new Government after the election, but I can reassure the whole House that a number of us will not drop this issue. It will come back time. We will raise the importance of getting proper democratic scrutiny and, on issues such as labour rights, of ensuring that we protect both our own economy and workers themselves from the exploitation that has been evidenced so succinctly in various debates in this House.