Progress to date: UK Board of Trade
The UK Trade and Business Commission has recommended that the UK Government create an independent agency to replace the existing Board of Trade.
Read the recommendation in full here.
This new and independent UK 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.
Like the OBR, the UK Board of Trade should be fully independent of government, with its own staff and governance structure. Board members should reflect the breadth of trade policy stakeholders.
Support for an independent Board of Trade has been growing, particularly within the Labour ranks. At a speech in Canary Wharf in November 2023, Shadow Secretary for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds MP highlighted that Labour would be supporting the establishment of the Board of Trade as an independent entity, accountable to the Secretary of State.
Support for the Board of Trade has been offered by the following:
“Voters rightly expect that Government policy, and indeed parliamentary scrutiny of it, should be evidenced based. An independent Board of Trade, with the power to publish assessments on the impact of proposed trade policy, is critical in any liberal democracy seeking to protect domestic industry and boost economic growth.”
“With this proposed shake-up of the Board of Trade, Government has a real opportunity to engage business and industry at the policymaking table in a meaningful way.
Working together with those on the front line of global trade, and giving them the independence to issue guidance on the pros and cons of proposed deals, would be a win-win for the UK.”
“So Labour will give the Board of Trade a proper purpose as an independent advisory agency, accountable to the Secretary of State, advising on the impacts of regulation on trade; horizon scanning for opportunities. And because trade is integral to every region and nation in the UK, it will have an explicit duty to report against how each region and nation is performing to boost opportunities for the whole of the UK.”
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