The House of Commons Business and Trade Select Committee has published a report ahead of the UK-EU summit in May.
The Committee highlights that the UK government has described raising growth as its number one mission and has a target for the UK to achieve the highest rate of sustained growth in the G7. Currently the UK is not on course to meet that target, and the Committee says that a closer relationship with the UK’s largest export market, the EU, is mission critical to helping realise ambitions for growth.
Among other things, it has made the following recommendations which may be of interest to tech lawyers:
- Any new UK-EU security arrangements should include an explicit recognition that it would be mutually beneficial to act together to guard the critical national infrastructure on which the UK and EU business community depends.
- The UK should work closely with the EU to strengthen coordinated action against non-market economies that undermine the international trading system through unfair practices, including abuse of forced labour, industrial subsidies, state-owned enterprise advantages, and forced technology transfers. Enhancing cooperation on trade defence instruments—such as anti-subsidy and anti-dumping measures—along with alignment of safeguards against use of forced labour in supply chains will help ensure a more effective and consistent response to market distortions that threaten fair competition.
- The Committee recommends that the UK government consults with the business community, unions, workers and consumer groups and identifies sectors of the economy where, over the next ten years, there will be mutual gains from maximising compatible regulation with the EU. This should include an assessment of the flexibilities the UK might need to maintain membership of existing trade deals like CPTPP, and to agree the free trade deals currently under negotiation with Switzerland, the Gulf Cooperation Council and India. Where there is significant mutual gain from compatible regulation with the EU, the government should commit to a regulatory roadmap that maintains compatible regulation with the EU and seek, where beneficial for both parties, mutual recognition of conformity assessments.
- The Committee notes the extensive cooperation between the UK government and the European Commission on the Data (Use and Access) Bill. It recommends that the government continues monitoring the EU’s Data Union Strategy when it is published and assess any relevant implications for UK policy, and take whatever steps are required to ensure a permanent data adequacy agreement is secured.
