Speeches by Bryant.

“I think the Chancellor has been asked directly about it in the Chamber, so I would be inclined to go with whatever she said.”

“I do not accept that. I have not had any indication, and nor has anybody in the Department, from anybody from the United States of America that the process that we are engaged in at the moment, of trying to secure the best economic prosperity deal for the UK, is not on track.”

“As Kate has just said, and so far as I am aware—I have not been in any of the rooms personally, so I am a bit hesitant about precisely what I can say—it has not been raised.”

“No. It is British legislation. We brought it in, and I think it is necessary. Indeed, we may need to go further, but it is a matter for DSIT to decide exactly how far we go.”

“Sorry to interrupt, but it is for the British Parliament to determine what the legislation should be in relation to that. It has not happened in this particular case, but sometimes people say, “Well, you’ve got to change this or that piece of legislation to get a deal over the line.” I often have to point out, “I’m sor…”

“But in relation to an aeroplane, for instance, what is a European aeroplane? When any of the European countries go round the world trying to persuade countries to buy Airbus, 30% of the aeroplane is likely to be made in the UK, because the wings will have been here or the engines may have been made by Rolls-Royce here …”

“Yes.”

“No, I do not accept that. That is certainly not the view when I have spoken to my German counterpart, my—I could go through a list, and I am quite happy to provide the list if that is something that is useful to you, of other countries that we have spoken to.”

“There is a lot of noise, and we tend to pretty much ignore it. We just plough on with trying to get the best possible deal we can—and that is what we get from the other side as well, to be fair.”

“I am at a bit of a disadvantage, because the first of those is a Treasury issue and the second is a DSIT issue. But having been in DSIT as a Minister for a year and a bit, my view is that the legislation introduced under the previous Government will probably not be sufficient to last three, four or five years but was n…”

“I should say first of all that we have a data adequacy agreement that is not in relation to the US; it is a bridge, as I think it is called, which is an important part of being able to allow localisation of data protection and so on. Secondly, one of the areas in which we co-operate with the US in relation to the WTO, …”

“No. I was going to come on to the point about automotives because I met Willie Bain and others and the SMMT on Thursday afternoon, I think—the day after the Accelerator Act had come out—or maybe on the Wednesday. I can’t remember; it was one or the other. They made those points, and we have registered the points as wel…”

“Yes.”

“I do not think that it is going to get worse in the sense of the cataclysmic version that you laid out there, but I will go through the individual issues. Let me start with the Accelerator Act. This is a draft; it’s a first draft. You know the processes through the European Union. We had been engaging with the European…”

“Go on, Kate—I am still thinking about the last answer I gave.”

“It is certainly one of the things that we are considering and it is part of the equation. But of course the opposite applies as well, which is this: would China bother taking such an action against us on our own? Probably not.”

“And we are improving it. I think there are further areas where, on the back of our business conduct review, we may want to align ourselves more closely with the EU and, for that matter, other countries. I think that, as I said earlier, we need to do more in relation to anti-competitive practices around the world. But w…”

“Okay. I think it has teeth. But anyway—”

“We have extremely rigorous food standards in the UK, and we are not going to surrender them. Incidentally, that does not just apply in relation to the United States of America. When we were having the conversation in relation to India, there was some question about cheese, and it is exactly the same set of issues. We h…”

“I am grateful, Chair, for your comment that 60% of what the Committee recommended in this area is being adopted by the Government. That is certainly the case. I know there are a couple of areas where we disagree. I wanted to make this offer to the Committee: if you can come up with a specific power that you think we ne…”