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Call for Evidence

UK-Japan trade negotiations inquiry

The House of Lords EU International Agreements Sub-Committee (IAC), chaired by Lord Goldsmith QC, has been taking evidence on UK-Japan trade talks since 25 June. The UK Government has now published the final text of the deal agreed, and the Committee continues its scrutiny work by gathering views on the text.

This is a public call for written comments on the UK-Japan Agreement to be submitted to help inform detailed scrutiny of the text. Owing to the short time available for scrutiny under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, which limits the Committee to doing its work within 21 sitting days after a deal has been laid before Parliament, responses are sought by 5pm on 6 November.

When preparing your response, please bear in mind that short, concise submissions are preferred, and responses should ideally not be longer than two sides of A4. Bullet points are acceptable. Submissions should be made through the link at the end of this page.

Further details about the process for making submissions are set out in Annex 1, but if you have any questions or require any adjustments to enable you to respond, please contact the staff of the Committee at HLIntlAgreements@parliament.uk.

Background

The International Agreements Committee is responsible for scrutinising how the Government conducts international agreements, including trade treaties, and the final content of those agreements.

The UK is currently a part of the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), which entered into force on 1 February 2019, but will leave the agreement when the transition period ends on 31 December 2020. The UK Government made securing a free trade agreement with Japan one of its early priorities and trade negotiations between the UK and Japan began on Tuesday 9 June 2020. The UK-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement was agreed in principle on Friday 11 September 2020 by International Trade Secretary Liz Truss and Japan’s Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu.

Areas of interest

We welcome broad responses to the published deal, as well as specific responses about how it might affect specific industries, groups and regions in the UK. We would also welcome commentary on whether the published deal meets both the objectives set out by the Government when it launched the talks and the expectations raised by the Government when it announced the agreement in principle.

ANNEX 1: GUIDANCE FOR SUBMISSIONS

Short submissions are preferred. Paragraphs should be numbered. All submissions made through the written submission form will be acknowledged automatically by email.

Evidence that is accepted by the Committee may be published online at any stage; when it is so published it becomes subject to parliamentary copyright and is protected by parliamentary privilege. Submissions that have been previously published will not be accepted as evidence.

If you wish to make a confidential submission, you must contact the Clerk of the Committee via the email address given below before making that submission. Transparency is a key part of the Committee inquiry process. It is therefore unlikely that a confidential submission will be accepted unless there is a very good reason for keeping that information private, and witnesses should consider carefully whether such submissions are appropriate to a select committee inquiry.

Once a submission has been accepted as evidence and published on the Committee’s website, you will receive a further email, and at this point you may publicise or publish your evidence yourself. In doing so you must indicate that it was prepared for the Committee, and you should be aware that your publication or re-publication of your evidence may not be protected by parliamentary privilege.

Personal contact details will be removed from evidence before publication but will be retained by the Committee Office and used for specific purposes relating to the Committee’s work, for instance to seek additional information.

Substantive communications to the Committee about the inquiry should be addressed through the Clerk of the Committee via HLIntlAgreements@parliament.uk, whether or not they are intended to constitute formal evidence to the Committee.

This call for written evidence has now closed.

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