Will soy sauce actually be cheaper? Lords to examine UK-Japan trade deal
Wednesday 4 November 2020
Today the House of Lords International Agreements Sub-Committee will look at the main parts of the new UK-Japan trade agreement, hearing from Lord Grimstone and Graham Zebedee, Chief Negotiator.
The session follows heavy promotion of the deal on Twitter by the Department of Trade, including a statement that soy sauce will be “made cheaper” by the new agreement.
The session will cover questions over negotiating the agreement overall, before looking at the main sectors involved, such as agriculture, creative industries and the automotive industries. The session will then move on to discussing the progress on talks with other key trading partners.
The evidence session will be conducted on Parliament.TV from 4pm today, Wednesday 4th November.
Giving evidence will be:
- Lord Grimstone
- Graham Zebedee, Chief Negotiator
Questions on Japan are likely to include:
- How difficult were the negotiations with Japan, given the time pressures and Japanese demands? What do you think the key victories were for the UK and where did we fail to achieve our ambitions in the trade agreement with Japan?
- Can you provide clarity on what was agreed on the Tariff Rate Quotas for agri-food and how UK exporters can use them in the coming years, and are you able to guarantee to exporters that they will not be worse off?
- Could you set out which tariffs will be reduced immediately, to zero or otherwise, when this deal comes into force?
- How will the deal help achieve the Government goal of protecting the creative industries?
- What do the provisions in the bilateral UK-Japan agreement mean for the automotive sector, and how will it affect them in practice?
- What new legislation – primary or secondary – will we need to implement the agreement?
