Policy submission

The International Trade committee UK trade remedies authority inquiry - Which? evidence

2 min read
Advocacy Team
  1. The Government must ensure that consumer interests are at the heart of future UK trade policy. Consumers are central to future economic success and trade policy needs to deliver tangible consumer benefits and protect consumer interests.
  2. Which? recognises the need to establish a trade remedies system as the UK leaves the EU, if the UK is to set its own trade policy. An arms’ length Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) is an appropriate approach to deliver this. Consumer interests should be taken into account, along with wider public interest considerations, in determining whether remedies are appropriate. We therefore support the inclusion of an “economic interest” test within the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill, which includes consumer interests, which would need to be taken into account by the new TRA when assessing the appropriate response to a complaint. The Secretary of State would also have the ability to reject the TRA’s advice if they are not satisfied that the economic interest test has been met or if it is not otherwise in the public interest to accept the recommendation.
  3. The governance and working practices of the TRA will be important in ensuring that this test, and therefore the consumer interest, is taken into account in a meaningful way in practice. The TRA needs to have a clear duty to consumers, which includes a comprehensive and transparent consideration of consumer impacts in both the short and longer-term as part of any investigations. It must also be governed and structured in such a way that it has the capacity to do this. Based on best practice by other public bodies, measures that would help to assure this include consumer representation on the Board of the TRA, clear procedures for transparency and publication of the assessments that underpin its advice, including how it has balanced consumer relative to other interests in order to determine what recommendation is appropriate.
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