© Wiktor Dabkowski/dpa/Corbis
Campaigners say TTIP threatens public services and could allow corporations to challenge tax changes that hit their profits.
Politicians gain access to documents on controversial trade deal, but electronic devices ban fuels 'cloak of secrecy' fears.
MPs have won access to documents covering controversial and secretive trade talks between Brussels and Washington,
but can only take a pencil and paper into the room where the files can be viewed.
Confidentiality rules mean no electronic devices - including phones, tablet and laptop computers, or cameras - are allowed in the room at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in Westminster. This is fuelling concerns about a "cloak of secrecy" surrounding the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations between the EU and the US government.
UK business minister Anna Soubry agreed to provide the room in BIS's offices on the condition that MPs keep the TTIP documents private. Soubry said pressure on Brussels officials from EU governments had won the concession, but the department was obliged to maintain secrecy.
Green MP Caroline Lucas said that access to documents on "this hugely significant trade deal" was necessary before UK parliamentarians were asked to vote on it. "But the bad news is that a cloak of secrecy still surrounds TTIP. If the same rules apply here in the UK as they do in Brussels, which is what the minister is implying, then MPs will be bound by a confidentiality agreement if they want to see the text," Lucas said.
"This opaque process, which shuts citizens out of this crucial debate, is profoundly undemocratic."
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