My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, I was unable to participate at Second Reading. I was asked by the Lord Speaker to be part of the reception party for the President of South Korea, which was a great honour.
I am very interested in this Bill. I have been involved with Japanese civil servants and Japanese companies in discussions leading up to the UK’s application for accession. I am very much aware of how important it was to the Government of Japan that the UK should accede to this partnership and as early as possible. Many Japanese associates have told me that they welcome that the UK will be able to exercise a de facto joint leadership of this group with Japan in the initial period, which will help ensure that the CPTPP functions efficiently and in the interests of all its members. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, that we do not want the CPTPP to enable substandard goods to come in. Obviously, it will be very good, as my noble friend Lord Lansley said, if we can move towards mutual recognition of conformity assessment bodies, especially with countries such as Japan and with other CPTPP members.
However, I am not sure that this amendment is necessary. If the conformity assessment bodies are doing their job, they will have to apply for the granting of equivalents of the standards to which the goods to be imported conform in their own country. Therefore, this amendment is possibly otiose because conformity assessment bodies will have to do this anyway.
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