I am always very encouraged when MPs raise questions about Audio Visual to the Government, partly because my professional industry is based on Audio Visual. My work is for a company called Ashdown Audio Visual based in Sussex. We are also part of a network known as ISCVE or the Institute of Sound, Communications and Visual Engineers Sadly the reference to Audio Visual does not happen very often in Parliament and even more tragically the Government did not respond to this question in detail so we don’t know what their view is. On Wednesday the Government Minister of State for International Trade, Penny Mordaunt responded very briefly to five questions that had been submitted in writing from Gareth Thomas who is the Shadow Minister for International Trade and he has been the Harrow West Minister since 1997. Penny Mordaunt is the MP for North Portsmouth, a role she has had since 2010. The five questions from Gareth all began with “To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, whether she will:” and the first one involved:

seek a complete carve out of audio-visual services from the intellectual property chapter of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement as part of her proposals to join that partnership; and if she will make a statement.

Clearly we now need to know why Gareth Thomas raised this and indeed by Penny Mordaunt chose to not respond to it in any extent. Perhaps we can ask Gareth why he mentioned it and ask Penny why she ignored it? In the meantime here are the other four questions he asked:

• sign side letters with members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership to exclude the compulsory use of the Investor State Dispute Settlement Process as part of her proposals to join that partnership; and if she will make a statement.
• negotiate a carve out from the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership on patent law so that the UK can maintain its membership of the European Patent Convention; and if she will make a statement.
• seek to secure a special automotive carve out with Japan as part of accession talks to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership; and if she will make a statement.
• propose reforms to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Code of Conduct for Investor State Dispute Settle proceedings during negotiations on accession to that partnership; and is she will make a statement.

and the answer she provided was:

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership is a pre-existing agreement signed by eleven countries and ratified by eight. It is not possible to re-write the agreement, because this is an accession process, not a brand-new free trade agreement negotiation

The Government cannot comment on the sensitive detail of live negotiations; however, accession will only take place on terms beneficial to the UK.

Perhaps in due course we can get a bit more information from both of them?