§ Mr. Jim CunninghamTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if she will make a statement on the openness of the GATS negotiations; and what she estimates the benefits were of(a) open and (b) closed discussions during this process. [118914]
§ Ms Hewitt[holding answer 16 June 2003]: The Government believe that all WTO negotiations should be as transparent as possible, consistent with protecting negotiating positions. To this end the Government have been as open as possible with civil society about progress with the negotiations, meeting them frequently.
In relation to the GATS, we published our second public consultation document last year, setting a lead that other governments and the European Commission have followed. We will shortly be publishing our response. We also pressed strongly for the EU's initial
432WGATS offer to be published at the time of its submission to the WTO. A number of other WTO Members have done so.
However, transparency is a matter for each government and we must respect the wishes of those who have asked for their GATS requests or offers to be treated as restricted. For this reason, we have not published other countries' requests to us in full, but summarised them in our consultation document. That is the balance we have struck.