Trade and Agriculture Commission: Role in International Trade Deals

[Hannah Bardell in the Chair]

Before we start, I would like to make an announcement. As everybody will be aware, the weather in London is very hot, so Members who are wearing jackets are welcome to take them off and speak without them; I am sure the public will have significant sympathy. I have also permitted the Doorkeepers to remove their jackets, so that everybody can stay conscious.

Members will be aware that social distancing is no longer in operation, but I remind them that Mr Speaker has encouraged us to wear masks between speeches. Members participating physically and virtually must arrive for the start of the debate and are expected to remain for the entire debate. I also remind Members participating virtually that they must leave their camera on for the duration of the debate, and that they will be visible at all times, both to each other and to us in the Boothroyd Room. If Members attending virtually have technical problems, they should email the Westminster Hall Clerks at westminsterhallclerks@parliament.uk. Members attending physically, I will be grateful if you could clean your spaces before you use them and when you leave the room.

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the role of the Trade and Agriculture Commission in international trade deals.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I am delighted to see support from colleagues from across the House on this issue, including the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), a former member of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and a very good one; the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies); and my hon. Friends the Members for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) and for Keighley (Robbie Moore), who are all current members of the Committee. I also thank my fellow Devon MPs, my hon. Friends the Members for East Devon (Simon Jupp) and for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), who also join us.

I called for this debate because I am concerned about the lack of urgency from the Government in matters relating to the Trade and Agriculture Commission—both the non-statutory body and the statutory body. During the passage of the Agriculture Act 2020 and the Trade Act 2021, serious concerns were raised by me and many other MPs, as well as the farming sector and non-governmental organisations, about the potential impact of free trade deals on the UK’s high environmental and animal welfare standards. The creation of the TAC was important in reassuring us that the Government listened to those concerns. The non-statutory TAC published a report on 2 March this year, providing the Government with 22 recommendations on how best to advance the interests of British food, farming, producers, consumers and trade deals. Summer recess is upon us, and we are almost five months on from that report, but we are still in the dark about what the Government will provide in response.

I know the Minister is very capable, but I cannot understand why it has taken him and his Department so long to respond to the Trade and Agriculture Commission. I have repeatedly asked the Trade Secretary when she will respond the report. As Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, I first wrote to her on 29 April. I wrote to her again on 26 May after I did not receive a reply. I then received what I can only describe as a holding reply from the Trade Secretary on 10 June. To be blunt, the Trade Secretary’s reply says very little and I suspect was just an attempt to buy more time. In her reply, the Trade Secretary agreed that the UK’s approach to agrifood should be “bold and ambitious”—hear, hear, I agree—but refused to expand on the Government’s response to the exact recommendations made by the TAC or provide any date for when the Government will respond. I have since written to her again to press on this.

The hon. Gentleman is making compelling points. Can I suggest to him that in fact, with the agreement with Australia, the pass has already been sold? What other country with which we have now to enter into agreements is going to accept anything less than Australia has been given?

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. Although I agree with him up to a point, we have only a deal in principle with Australia. The final parts have to be done, and we want the new Trade and Agriculture Commission up and running to fulfil its legal responsibilities. There is time to recover from where we are.

A list of core standards would prevent our farmers from being undercut by imports that have been produced in ways that we do not tolerate here. We do not have one. At present, there appears to be a lack of joined-up thinking between the Government’s trade policy and their food and farming policy. British farmers are being told by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to raise their already world-leading environmental and animal welfare standards while their basic payments are being reduced. At the same time, the Department for International Trade is potentially allowing them to be undercut by foreign suppliers that are not held to the same high standards.

We need a very clear strategy on what exactly our key standards are and what the mechanism to enforce them in free trade deals is. That must be in place before we negotiate a deal that will allow hundreds of thousands of tonnes of Australian agriproducts into our country.

I expect that the Minister will tell us that the non-regression clause on animal welfare standards is the first of its kind in a free trade agreement. I would hate to think that the Minister introduced that clause just to make it look as though we are taking steps to protect our animal welfare standards when in fact very little may be achieved. I hope he can enlighten us.

Without that core list of standards on which we will not compromise, what is the point of a non-regression clause? We first need to know which measures we cannot regress. The Australians already have practices that, if we were to adopt them here, we would consider regressions. In Australia, the practice of mulesing sheep is permitted, egg-laying hens are kept in battery cages and chickens can be washed with chlorine. Cattle can be transported on journeys lasting up to 48 hours. The Australians are still using organophosphate dips, which were banned in this country in 1999 because of health risks to farmers. I saw their impact on my own father’s health; he used almost to bathe in the dip, which he should never have done. It is a nasty product.

We must set out very clearly what measures we will not accept and then sign a non-regression clause. Henry Dimbleby, whom the Government asked to conduct an independent review of our food policy, endorsed that approach in the national food strategy. One of the strategy’s key recommendations is that the Government define minimum standards for trade and the mechanism for protecting them. Mr Dimbleby also raised concerns about the precedent the Australian deal sets and about not having that set of standards in place. He says:

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, much of which I agree with, but I am afraid that I do not agree with point that every single trade deal will find itself being similar to the last. The Mexicans may well ask about having their eggs included in the trade deal, but it is up to our trade negotiators to say no. We have that power and that ability. Does he not see the value of our negotiators standing up for our own British produce?

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Yes, he is absolutely right that it is absolutely possible for our trade negotiator to stand up for these conditions, but until we have got this Trade and Agriculture Commission and the core principles in place, how on earth will we be certain that is going to happen? We will have to be clear in negotiations that we will not accept these eggs.

Likewise, I have been very critical recently of Brazilians and their environmental record, given the massive increase in deforestation that we have seen under their current Administration. If we signal to them that we are willing to compromise on our standards, that would completely undermine our negotiating position before we even get to the table. At a time when we are passing the Environment Bill and supposedly setting world-leading laws on deforestation, that would be such a failure of joined-up thinking.

The second key recommendation by the TAC report, which we need a response to, is that we need a proper export strategy if our producers are to benefit from these opportunities. In particular, we need an export council to co-ordinate our export efforts and an increase in the number of agricultural councils as a priority, so that we can have counsellors all across the world, as the Australians and others do. We also need to have a better link between the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the DIT. The TAC argues for a dedicated Minister for agrifood trade who will work across Government; I would be very interested in hearing the Minister’s views on that suggestion.

One thing that I am very keen to see is an expansion in the number of agriculture counsellors that we have abroad. The UK has an agriculture and food council in just two of our embassies, in China and the United Arab Emirates. These were funded largely by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board. The US spends over $200 million on its foreign agriculture services to help its exporters to break into markets, with offices in over 90 countries. Recently, Australia has been spending 20 million Australian dollars on its network of agriculture counsellors around the world, who operate in 15 locations across Europe, South America and Asia. New Zealand has a network of 22 counsellors; it has eight counsellors in China alone, because it knows that it is challenging but important to enter a new market that presents a prime opportunity for exports. It has a very senior official based in China to lead on the ground, who comes from New Zealand’s equivalent to DEFRA. That is what the Chinese really want—somebody very senior in China to negotiate these deals.

The New Zealanders are very good at getting technical specialists on the ground. In some markets where the rules are strict, they have policy counsellors but they also have veterinary counsellors, who have the technical knowledge to work around the requirements for importing into new markets. They learn exactly what needs to be done on standards for imports, but they also help to produce the right legal paperwork. They do so by building networks with the local equivalents of DEFRA, the AHDB and the Food Standards Agency. They do all that before they enter into negotiations for a trade deal. We need to emulate this model and we need to crack on with it before deals are signed, or we will not have the framework in place for exporters to benefit from a deal straight away.

I would like to call the SNP spokesperson by 3.28 pm. Depending on interventions and to be equitable to all Members, I would hope to give four and a half minutes to each Member.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Bardell. I congratulate the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), on securing this debate. I have lost count of the number of times we have debated these issues over the last few years.

In my view, it is very clear that the Trade and Agriculture Commission, in both its iterations, was brought into being only to give the Government a get-out clause—to buy off potential rebels on the Agriculture Bill and the Trade Bill who shared my concerns and those of many others, including the National Farmers Union, about the Government’s real position on protecting our current environmental and welfare standards in future trade deals.

Despite all the rhetoric that we got from Government Ministers when we questioned them at the EFRA Committee and in the Chamber, it was obvious that something was up, because the Government refused to enshrine these protections in law and came up with excuse after excuse for why they did not need to do so. Minister after Minister said, “Trust me.” We just did not. So they came up with this mechanism—the TAC—and, while some of us remained highly sceptical, others thought that maybe it might just work. We hear today from the Chair of the Select Committee, as I am sure we will hear from other speakers, that patience is wearing thin.

I want to focus on what it says in the national food strategy—I have the great big document here with me— which was commissioned two years ago by the Government. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton has mentioned the overlap between some of its recommendations. In part one of the strategy, which was published a year ago, last July, one of the recommendations was that the Government should

“commission an independent report on all proposed trade agreements, assessing their impact on: economic productivity; food safety and public health; the environment and climate change; society and labour; human rights; and animal welfare. This report would be presented alongside a Government response when any final trade treaty is laid before Parliament.”

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell, and to follow the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy).

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) on securing this debate. I very much agree with the points he made forcefully and eloquently. It is indeed a privilege to serve under his chairmanship as a member of the EFRA Committee. I declare a strong professional and political interest as a veterinary surgeon and as the MP for Penrith and The Border, which is home to many fantastic Cumbrian farmers who produce superb food to the highest production standards.

Many constituents have been in touch to express their concerns about the free trade agreement with Australia and what it might mean for our local farmers and producers and for animal welfare standards. I share their concerns. Broadly, I welcome the possibility of a mutually beneficial trade deal between our two nations, but it has to be the right one. Although we have so much in common with our closest friends in Australia, our economies are very different, and any trade deal should reflect that.

For example, when it comes to livestock farms, the costs of production are much lower in Australia, and the animal husbandry methods are very different. I say that as someone who has worked as a vet on farms in both the UK and Australia. It is vital that we have a thriving UK food production industry that is not undercut by imports. I am clear that any deal must not disadvantage our farmers and food producers, or compromise animal welfare. That is why I have repeatedly called for animal welfare chapters to be included and tariff rate quotas to be used.

I am pleased that the Government have listened to my calls for an all-important animal welfare chapter in the agreement. However, we are still unclear on the detail of the chapter and on the exact use of tariff rate quotas to safeguard any deal. Importantly, we still await the Government’s response to the Trade and Agriculture Commission’s report. When I asked former TAC chairman Tim Smith about those issues during our EFRA Committee session in April, he said he would be

I am very pleased to serve under your chairpersonship, Ms Bardell. As you know, I have been involved in the Council of Europe as a trade rapporteur. I am also a member of the EFRA Committee. I very much welcome everything that the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) has said. I serve on the Welsh Affairs Committee, and we looked at this important issue as well.

The Government refused to put a list of welfare and other standards and constraints in the Trade Bill. They said that the Trade and Agriculture Commission would act as an advisory body that would provide information to Parliament so that we could make an informed decision before trade deals were made. We can see that the Government are not taking this seriously because, since 2 March—almost 22 weeks ago—the 22 recommendations made by the Trade and Agriculture Commission have not been responded to. There is great concern that the Government are desperately trying to sign off any deal as quickly as they can, irrespective of the welfare and industrial implications. We have taken evidence to that effect in our Select Committee.

It is important that we realise that Australia will serve as a benchmark. I appreciate the intervention of the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), who seemed to think that we could have different standards for different deals, but the World Trade Organisation will judge that, so we cannot have inconsistent standards. The standards in Australia are significantly worse; the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), mentioned that cattle are allowed to travel for 48 hours instead of 24 hours, and sheep are subjected to horrendous removal of the skin on their buttocks—without anaesthetic for 44% of them, and with some sort of pain relief for 40%. The Australians said they would stop that practice in 2012, so we cannot really trust them on their word to improve welfare standards if it is not in their competitive interest to do so.