Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [HL]

I thank the noble Lord for that comment; I am happy to have a discussion with him and other noble Lords about this. We would resist this significantly. It would cause confusion to have parallel principles around how the Secretary of State should act in relation to this FTA and in other areas, in terms of how we manage our own economy and how we check our supply chains. The noble Lord, Lord McNicol, was right to raise the concept of supply chains; I have conversations with many noble Lords in many instances about the principles around how we protect our products in this country from supply chains that we find are either not aligned with our values—as well raised by the noble Lord, Lord Alton—or lack competitive advantage. I have great sympathy in particular with the agriculture sector, with which I have engaged significantly and which says that it is not about free trade but that we are obliged to conform to standards that are significantly higher than in other countries. It is classified as unfair, and we are very sensitive to that.