Chris Bryant MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Jul 2026 · UK-Switzerland Enhanced Free Trade Agreement · Hansard source

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  A gentleman does not tell. We did have forthright conversations—as, for that matter, I did on the deal with the Gulf Co-operation Council, with both my Saudi and Emirati counterparts. The last bits end up with a degree of haggling, and it has to be done Minister to Minister because we have a bit more political leeway to be able to deliver the goods. We are both very happy with the deal that we have struck. It is true, though, that we had some forthright conversations.

• 14 Jul 2026 · UK-Switzerland Enhanced Free Trade Agreement · Hansard source

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  With permission, Mr Speaker, I will update the House on the enhanced free trade agreement that was concluded yesterday between the United Kingdom and Switzerland. This is the sixth trade deal that the Government have secured over the last two years. We already had an FTA with Switzerland, which was based on the 1972 EU-Switzerland agreement, but in keeping with many FTAs of that era, it was primarily focused on trade in goods. By contrast, this is the most significant trade agreement for services that the UK has concluded so far, and it includes the UK’s most ambitious digital chapter and most comprehensive business travel commitments in an FTA, along with high-ambition outcomes across services and investment. It especially plays to our strengths as a pre-eminent services superpower. It includes some of the strongest services commitments that we have ever secured, while creating opportunities in the eight core growth-driving sectors of our industrial strategy, including financial and professional services, life sciences and digital technologies. Our trade strategy, published one year ago, underscored what everyone with an eye on trade already knew: that our “services sectors are the most powerful engine of our growth and prosperity”, and that it was high time to pull services trade out of the margins of trade discussions. Some 83% of UK workers are employed in services, including through regional employers such as Capital Law in Cardiff and the Edinburgh-founded Skyscanner; large firms with multiple offices across the UK, such as Julius Baer, which has a regional office in Newcastle, and KPMG, which has offices in Leeds and elsewhere; and thousands of smaller firms across the country. We have worked hard to ensure that this deal really works for them. Switzerland is already the UK’s sixth largest services export market, and bilateral services trade was worth more than £30 billion last year. This agreement is estimated to increase UK services exports to Switzerland by £5.2 billion annually in the long run, while supporting jobs across the UK, including the 171,400 already supported by exports to Switzerland. On top of this, we know that Swiss-owned businesses employed around 150,000 people in the UK in 2024, and bilateral foreign direct investment stood at £87 billion at the end of 2024. The agreement we have reached ensures that job creation and investment will continue to grow as our bilateral trade grows. The UK and Switzerland have agreed that future improvements to access in certain sectors are locked in—the first time that Switzerland has agreed to adopt this approach. It gives UK firms a more stable business environment, and greater confidence to plan and invest. The agreement permanently protects the rights of UK lawyers to advise on foreign and international law in Switzerland without requalifying. Additionally, it includes the most comprehensive digital chapter that Switzerland has agreed to in an FTA. Over 70% of UK-Swiss services trade is delivered digitally, so it was absolutely critical to us that we laid out provisions that supported the free flow of data while ensuring that privacy remained protected, and I am glad to say that we have been successful. Our digital chapter modernises the digital trading environment through commitments on electronic contracts, signatures and invoicing, prevents customs duties on electronic transmissions, and restricts unjustified data localisation requirements, all of which will make digital trade easier and more appealing for businesses, whether they are based in Birmingham or Berne. This FTA locks in the commitments of the UK-Swiss services mobility agreement, which was due to expire in 2029. That will protect an estimated £700 million in UK services exports, and allow British professionals to supply services in Switzerland for up to 90 days each year without a work permit. I should add that this is the first UK FTA to cover Gibraltar from day one, ensuring that Gibraltar’s businesspeople will continue to be able to supply services to Switzerland for up to 90 days a year without a permit. Perhaps the real power in this agreement is the statement of intent for future co-operation between our two nations. For example, we know that the UK and Switzerland are global leaders in life sciences. It is in both our nations’ interests for our best and brightest to be able to work together, which is why we have included iron-clad intellectual property and data protection provisions. The outcomes of the deal will support the discovery and development of new medicines, and it does not change UK legislation or practice, maintaining the existing balance between supporting pharmaceutical innovation and the NHS’s access to lower-cost generic medicines. The generics and biosimilar industry supports this deal, saying that it safeguards the NHS’s access to affordable generic medicines. The agreement establishes an innovation working group to bring together business, academia and the Government, with the goal of finding the biggest opportunities and challenges facing our generation. The group is designed to keep pace with emerging technologies and global conditions, which keeps our agreement focused on the future and helps both the UK and Switzerland to stay on the front foot in an ever-changing world. To that end, the agreement also strengthens our co-operation on climate change, development and gender equality. This FTA is designed to evolve, survive and thrive over the long term. One of the key asks of UK businesses was to improve business mobility. Alongside the FTA, Switzerland has announced that UK nationals will soon be able to use e-gates at Swiss borders, in line with Schengen requirements, and they will be able to exit via e-gates at Zurich airport from as soon as the end of this year. Switzerland is also working towards allowing entry via e-gates, particularly at Zurich, Geneva and Basel airports, and will set out a timetable very shortly. The agreement will benefit all nations and regions of the UK. It will support services firms—from major financial and professional services employers in London and Leeds, to specialist small and medium-sized enterprises in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. My Department’s focus now is preparing the treaty for signature and implementation, and we will of course update the House as soon as this can happen. I am immensely grateful to my counterpart, Frau Budliger, with whom I had several assertive conversations—that is an understatement—and to my officials, especially Rob Whiteway, James Clarke, and Georgia Taylor from my private office. When it comes to trade, the primary role of Government is to pave the way for UK businesses by taking down barriers that prevent them from exporting their goods and services around the world. Of course, we also have to protect key sectors, and we will never compromise on animal welfare or food standards just to get a deal. This last year, this Government have made good on that responsibility. We secured the best deal with the USA of any country in the world. We took the India deal from signature to entry into force tomorrow—in record time. We secured a significant upgrade to our deal with the Republic of Korea. We concluded an agreement with the Gulf Co-operation Council worth £3.7 billion. We started discussions with China about a services agreement. We secured ratification of our membership of the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership with Canada and Mexico, and started accession talks with Uruguay, the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines and Indonesia. We are pursuing a new strategic partnership with the European Union. These deals are all about building a stronger and more resilient UK economy. They will be felt up and down the land in enhanced job prospects and better pay. I was delighted to mark the conclusion of negotiations at KPMG with some of the graduates and apprentices there. Our decisive actions are helping to make a difference to young people’s lives as they build their careers. They also prove that free trade can deliver the goods for British jobs and livelihoods, that the rules-based order is still in fine fettle, and that free and fair trade can enhance our lives. In the end, an FTA is just a piece of paper unless businesses seize the opportunities it affords them. We will play our part in informing and supporting businesses to do that, but it is British entrepreneurs, risk takers, innovators and deal makers who will be the real heroes of this era of UK trade. For all those reasons, I commend this statement to the House.

• 7 Jul 2026 · Summer Jobs · Hansard source

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  Yes. I am very glad that my hon. Friend picked me up on that—that is a very good point. I want to make another point about the levy, which is that some people seem to be suggesting that all of this is going to start in a couple of weeks’ time. Far from it; this levy is far from imminent. We are consulting on it, and that process will take some time—I doubt we will have anything in place in the next 12 months. I very much encourage people to take part in the consultation so that we can decide how to move forward. Of course, any mayor or strategic authority will want to consider all the issues in the round and whether a net benefit can be gained from introducing such a levy, notwithstanding the additional pressures that there might be on costs in the tourism and hospitality sector.

• 7 Jul 2026 · Summer Jobs · Hansard source

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  To be fair to the shadow Minister, I do not think he intends to send children up the chimneys any more. That was his policy a few years ago, or maybe his predecessor’s policy, but it is not his policy any more. It is not quite “Planet Earth that the Opposition are on, to quote Duran Duran, but they are close to it. The Opposition motion talks a lot about regret. It regrets the Employment Rights Act 2025, the national insurance contributions, and so on. I am afraid that it tempts me to give my notorious Édith Piaf impersonation: “Non, rien de rien…Je me fous du passé”. What is missing from these regrets of the Opposition? They have no regrets about helping draft the kami-Kwasi Budget that led to the fastest ever increase in mortgage rates, sending millions of families into unaffordable debt; no regrets about the biggest fall in living standards for two centuries; no regrets about slashing our public services, including the NHS, local government and our armed forces; no regrets about 14 years of anaemic economic growth. No regrets? No, I have regrets. I regret that the Conservatives ever got into power. I regret that they have become Mrs Thatcher’s moaning Minnies. I regret that they left us with a nation divided against itself, but I do not regret the Employment Rights Act—I am proud of it. To be clear, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have not moved the amendment, and I am not moving it.