Chris Bryant

I will not, as I have only two minutes. The Chair of the Select Committee made lots of good points. He referred to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 and said that a votable motion was guaranteed by the then Minister in 2010. I was the Minister, and I am not sure that I then guaranteed a votable motion, but I take his point about greater scrutiny. When I come to talk about the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation, I hope we will be able to deal with some of the other issues to which he referred. The hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins) referred to higher education. I am delighted to say that higher education is one of the things that MFN applies to as part of the deal. I was proud that the Prime Minister was able to open two new higher education campuses in India when he visited in October. The hon. Member makes a fair point about the European Parliament’s good practice on trade deals, which I will reflect on. I did not agree with everything that the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) said, but I understood the sentiment with which he said it. I just make the point to him that the whole agreement is legally binding. That is why I am glad that we have secured chapters in our deal that have not been in any others. The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) said that Government figures seemed too low. One of the figures is probably too low, and that is because we tried to err on the conservative side. In particular, some of the figures presume that we will not be doing any additional trade as a result of the FTA, but I think that we will. I think we could say that we will do better. The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) said that it was an enormous irony for a remainer such as myself to be standing here and proclaiming this. The thing is, I deal with the world as I find it, not as I would wish it to be. I cannot unmake the past, but I can make sure that we exploit the present to the best benefit of British business, and that is what this trade deal does. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the UK-India Free Trade Agreement.