Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 2:13 pm ar 22 Chwefror 2024.
I am grateful to the Minister for that question and for welcoming the report. We look forward to welcoming him before the Committee at some point in the near future to talk about some of our forthcoming reports on export-led growth. The point he makes is right and I am glad that, for once, he and I agree on the numbers—that has not always been the case. The reason we wanted to flag it is that the Government’s impact assessment states:
“CPTPP membership acts as a gateway to the wider Indo-Pacific region which is expected to account for the majority…of global growth between 2021 and 2050.”
We appreciate that all Governments need to hard-sell their policy achievements—that is the nature of the game we are in—but it is important that we do not oversell the treaty. The reality is that it accounts for only quite a small fraction of the Indo-Pacific market, which is trumpeted in the impact assessment and in the integrated review as one of the treaty’s virtues. We must be clear-eyed and hard-headed about precisely what gain comes from this treaty specifically, and it would help us all, frankly, if the Government set out their road map for growing the treaty in future.