Board of Trade
Bonus material
Happy Saturday!
Just a very quick post today. For those of you who have not had their memories and attention spans decimated by Twitter you might remember that I recently wrote about what the Board of Trade is, my experience of working with it, why it needs to be revamped, and what that should look like. It was described by actual trade expert Sam Lowe as ‘rather amusing’ so feel free to give it a read here.
I mention this because this past week the UK Trade and Business Commission recently wrote an open letter to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade on this very topic. I was pleased to sign my name to it (alongside people who actually know what they’re talking about). It’s an important letter and explains that a revamped Board of Trade should essentially function like the OBR by being independent and staffed by experts. Here is a link to the letter which includes a list of the other signatories. I have also reproduced the text of the letter below.
Dear Secretary of State,
We are aware of reports of an upcoming revamp of the Board of Trade, noting the recent news of a decision to include new representatives on the Board.
An upgrade of the Board of Trade is long overdue, but with the UK’s trading arrangements increasingly central to the UK’s economic outlook, it is vital that you take this opportunity to reform the Board of Trade to reflect the importance of the UK’s new trading arrangements to the UK economy.
As detailed in our recent report, based on evidence from 234 expert trading witnesses ‘Trading our Way to Prosperity, a Blueprint for Policymakers’, the Board of Trade should be set up as an independent agency, modelled on the highly regarded Swedish Board of Trade.
Like the OBR, the UK Board of Trade should be fully independent of government, with its own staff and governance structure.
This new Board of Trade should be responsible for a range of tasks including analysing the UK’s trading performance, conducting impact assessments of new trade deals, and overseeing the implementation of existing agreements to identify areas where they can be improved. The agency should also monitor how UK nations and regions are affected by international trade agreements and conduct horizon scans to identify emerging issues of importance to UK traders and consumers.
As the Department for Business and Trade looks to revamp the Board of Trade, I urge you to ensure that any such revamp takes account of the need for broad representation, independence, frequent and proactive analysis and expertise.
Best wishes,
Professor L. Alan Winters
Commissioner, UK Trade and Business Commission
Professor of Economics, University of Sussex
Co-Director of the Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy
More trade stuff
I wrote for City AM this past week on my efforts to establish an ‘Importing is GREAT Britain’ campaign back when I was working at the Department for International Trade. Here is a link to the article.
I also wrote an article for CapX last Friday on why a trade deal with India would be a great thing but why we should give the negotiators time to get the best possible deal, even if that takes time.
Last week’s blog post was about the time I was approached by a Chinese spy on LinkedIn and why the UK government should fast track Taiwan’s accession to CPTPP. Here is a link to it if you missed it (I am quite proud of the title).
I noticed a jump in subscribers last week (thanks Sam Lowe). I do write quite a bit about trade but I consider myself more of an enthusiastic amateur rather than an expert in this area though. This Substack does tend to focus on the economy in general so please don’t expect something on trade every week! That being said, it is an area where I have interest and experience and is increasingly important to the UK economy (and makes for a good deal of controversy) so I imagine I’ll still be writing about it quite frequently.
Have a great weekend!