NPF Report Summer
2018: preparing policy for the Labour Party Conference
The policy commission on which I sit deals with the economy, business and trade. At our
meeting in June we focussed on trade issues, just ahead of the two trade bills
returning to parliament.
There was a clear difference of view between the TUC and War
on Want who both gave evidence at the session. Both agreed that trade deals
have gone far beyond matters of trade. All kind of standards and regulations
are treated at “non-tariff barriers to trade” and so modern trade deals often
deal in matters which are primarily issues of public health, environmental and
safety standards as well as issues of government purchasing, qualifications,
and patent protection.
Both opposed special courts for investors (investor state
dispute settlement) and agreed that there was too little public scrutiny or
accountability of trade agreements.
Rosa Crawford, giving evidence for the TUC, said that trade
unions had three main aims:
·
that exclude trade unions and civil society
should be involved in future negotiations;
·
that trade deals should provide binding
protection for employment rights including enforcement and sanctions
procedures;
·
that public services should be excluded for
future trade deals.
For War on Want, Jean Blaylock, argued that trade diplomacy
was an extremely powerful means of changing international policies. Trade deals
allowed deregulation and privatisation to slip by out of sight of the public
interest and that there was a ratchet effect, once a market was “liberalised”
there was no route back.
Her view was that we trade deals would be better restricted
to trade questions and that trade should sit among a range of international
agreements focussed on the specific questions eg sustainability and public
health.
We also heard a technical presentation on trade remedies.
The main take-away was that the UK does not make enough use of the protections
available to resist unfair trade.
Barry Gardner, shadow trade secretary, gave an update from
the front bench. He covered the amendments to the Trade Bill and Customs Bill
many of which were concerned with greater scrutiny and accountability of trade
deals.
In July the commission met to consider the responses to the
consultation exercise on “The Future of Work”. A report on the commissions work
had been circulated only the day before and some of us felt that there had not
been enough time to read and digest the document. as this report will be
submitted to annual conference, I felt we were not able to do our job properly.
I asked for us to be given more time to submit written comments and this was
agreed. However, we do not have a policy document as a result of the
consultation, simply the annual report of the commission’s activity.
The meeting also has excellent feedback from the front
bench. John McDonnell discussed the final report on finance from Graham Turner.
His report proposes the creation of a Strategic Investment Board to oversee
Labour’s £250 billion investment in economic infrastructure. It recommends
changing the Bank of England’s mandate to include 3% target for raising
productivity. John also spoke of his work on doubling the number of coops and recommended
the Coop Party’s report Cooperatives
Unleashed.
Rebecca Long Bailey, shadow business secretary, announced
that her report on reforming corporate governance would be published before
conference. She covered the growing
anxiety among businesses of a hard Brexit. Major firms like Airbus, BMW and
Unipart were engaged in risk planning but smaller firms had no capacity for
risk assessment or defence against a no deal Brexit. her team were stepping p
business liaison with round table meetings around the country including small
firms and focussed on marginal seats.
