UK MPs criticises lack of information on FTA talks with India

A cross-party Parliament committee in charge of scrutinising the UK government’s trade affairs on Friday strongly criticised the lack of information provided around Britain's ongoing negotiations with India for a free trade agreement (FTA). The House of Commons International Trade Committee, which is set to be dissolvedon April 26, to make way for a new Business and Trade Committee in keeping with the creation of the new merged department by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, said in many cases it gleaned more detail on the talks from reports in the Indian media – often citing unnamed Indian government officials. India and the UK are negotiating an FTA to enhance the bilateral trading relationship worth 34 billion pounds in 2022, with the eighth round of negotiations concluding in New Delhi at the end of last month and the next round expected in the coming weeks.

In their report, MPs note that the briefings they have received from Government on the negotiations, designed to inform the Committee’s all-important scrutiny, have been extremely limited in scope. Even requests for basic information were met with unhelpful responses. The fact that the Government is no longer putting arbitrary deadlines on trade negotiations is welcomed in the report. It also finds that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s widely-trailed deadline to get a deal with India “done by Diwali” was unrealistic. 

Angus Brendan MacNeil MP, Chair of the International Trade Committee, has suggested that  a trade deal with India is an opportunity to enhance our trading relationship with the fifth-largest economy in the world. But this agreement must not come at any cost. As our report highlights, there are important issues at stake, including potential impacts on NHS drug costs, human and labour rights, gender equality and pesticide standards. Parliament must be kept more fully informed about the negotiations. It cannot be right that we have obtained more details from the Indian media than we have from the UK Government, he said.