Part of Trade Bill – in a Public Bill Committee am 4:45 pm ar 25 Mehefin 2020.
Greg Hands
The Minister of State, Department for International Trade
4:45,
25 Mehefin 2020
On a point of order, Sir Graham, I thank you, Ms Cummins, and everybody involved in the Bill for all your hard work in Committee. Once again, I am both pleased and privileged to have been able to engage in a thorough debate on the contents of the Bill, which bears an uncanny resemblance to the Trade Bill in the last Parliament. I have been in and out of the Department for International Trade, but on returning to the Department, I found the Bill looking more or less the same as when I left the Department in June 2018.
I thank the Committee for engaging with the issues in a positive and constructive way; we have had some real insight, not only into trade policy overall, but into how Opposition parties deal with trade policy. I will not dwell further on that, because I have made a few points already, but it is good to see that the approach patented by Barry Gardiner—with the Opposition’s trade policy a moving feast—lives on today in his absence.
We have had a great debate, carried out in a good spirit, during our two-week immersion in trade policy. I think that, no matter which party one belongs to, a full two-week immersion in trade policy is a great thing as we move forward towards our independent trade policy, effective from
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