Australia and New Zealand Trade Deals

Debate between Andrew Bowie and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Monday 14th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie]

My right hon. Friend has an incredible amount of experience in this field. I would be happy to take up the issue with him outside the Chamber following the debate.

Our deals include a range of protections that allow us to apply higher tariffs to protect UK farmers, including tariff rate quotas for a number of sensitive agricultural products; specific additional protective measures for beef and lamb products, which will provide further tariff protections to our farmers; and a general bilateral safeguard mechanism that will allow the UK to increase tariffs or suspend their liberalisation for up to four years in the unlikely situation that the farming industry faces serious loss from increased agricultural imports. On top of all that, there is still the option of global safeguards under the WTO.

I will now turn to the points raised about environmental, animal welfare and food standards. I stress that we will never compromise on these critical protections—

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

You have!

[Andrew Bowie]

No, we have not. That is why our trade deals include specific measures to uphold them.

Before I go on, I must quickly correct the record. Earlier, the Minister for Trade Policy, who unfortunately has a prior engagement in his constituency, said in response to an intervention from the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) that the climate change agreement in the deal was Australia’s first. It is not; it is actually Australia’s second. It also has an environmental chapter in its agreement to the CPTPP. In addition, the Trade and Agriculture Commission has separately confirmed that our free trade agreements do not require the UK to change our existing levels of statutory protection in relation to any areas.

I now briefly turn to scrutiny, which is incredibly important. Contrary to the description of the right hon. Member for Warley of the scrutiny process, and always remembering that CRaG was introduced by Labour, the Government have made extensive commitments to support robust scrutiny of all new free trade agreements. These commitments greatly exceed our statutory requirements and we have met every single one.

I hear and understand the concerns of the hon. Member for Rochdale and I accept the challenge to go further and do better, but the Australian FTA was examined by Parliament for more than seven months and the scrutiny period featured reports from three Select Committees. I praise the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) and it is sad that the Chair of the International Trade Committee, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil), is not in attendance today.

Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Andrew Bowie and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Well, I can go and look at my notes and see if they said that procurement was a particular problem. Their concern was that they were presented with a faits accomplis time and time again. They were presented with, “This is the way that you can have it; accept it or leave it.” That was in a wide range of areas, but trade was one of their many concerns.

The amendments are not to say that the Government are not meeting with the devolved Administrations or are not in communication with them, but to say that the Government must consult and work with the devolved Administrations and the English regions before the regulations are laid, in a co-operative, rather than dictatorial, way. It is therefore important that they are agreed to, because they would provide the reassurance that is needed to rebuild the way that regulations are laid that affect the whole UK. We have seen how, when legislative consent motions have not been provided, they are still run roughshod over.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

The Minister has just informed the Committee that the chief negotiator met the DAs 25 times in the run-up to this trade Bill being put down. Will the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown inform the House, if he knows the answer to this, how many times the chief negotiators from the EU consulted the devolved authorities in the UK and, indeed, the UK Government and Members of this House when trade deals were being negotiated, given that he seems such a fan of the way the EU conducts itself in trade negotiations?