Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill

Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 23rd January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, who moved so eloquently his amendment. I lend my strong support to his Amendment 3, which encapsulates a discussion that was held at Second Reading by a number of noble Lords around the Chamber and previous legislation that we debated a year or two ago. I warmly welcome my noble friend the Minister to his place and am glad he has the opportunity to present this Bill in Committee.

It was very clear that the Trade and Agriculture Commission should have a role, and that the timing and sequence of that role in relation to trade agreements, or in this case procurement agreements, is absolutely vital. I look forward to my noble friend’s response to Amendment 3 and the other amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lennie. I particularly associate myself with Amendment 3.

Amendment 7 in my name is a probing amendment. I draw the Committee’s attention to the Department for International Trade’s impact assessment for this free trade agreement, particularly page 32, to which the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, also referred. Having been in touch with the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, I accept that it will be a beneficiary of this agreement going forward, provided that a chapter is included after the association agreement. It harks back to when we joined the European Economic Community in 1973 and were told that we would get cheap booze. Here we go again; it seems to be a relic of that time.

What is stark about table 3 on page 32 is the figures on food. Agriculture, forestry and fishing will take a change of minus 0.35%, a tumble of £48 million over 2019 figures; and, furthermore, semi-processed foods will take a tumble of 1.16%, which is a £97 million fall in equivalent growth value added. What is the issue that this Government have with farmers’ role in producing food, particularly in increasing the level of self-sufficiency? We are hovering around the 60% mark. Given the fact that we have a war on our borders, it is absolutely vital that we look to improve our food self-sufficiency. This has been recognised by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, who remarked at the time of the leadership contest hustings last summer, which seems an awfully long time ago:

“We know that farmers are concerned by some of the trade deals we have struck, including with Australia. A Rishi Sunak-led Government will make farmers a priority in all future trade deals … We will maintain the highest standards of animal welfare, environmental protection and food safety.”


The problem that I have with the procurement aspect of the Bill—and with the Procurement Bill itself and the trade agreement with Australia and New Zealand—is that it is completely asymmetrical on farming, forestry, agriculture and processed foods. As the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, suggested, this goes to the safeguards. Normally, we have infinite safeguards: they are not time-barred. The noble Lord referred to these being between 11 and 15 years in length. For what reason are these safeguards time-barred? This breaks with tradition in other trade agreements, procurement agreements, or whatever the Minister wants to call it. It has been incredibly difficult to table amendments, so I really feel quite pleased that I have an amendment that passed go on this.

The reason that I referred particularly to lamb and beef in proposed new subsection (1) in Amendment 7 is that they are the two sectors where our farmers stand to lose out. Also, for 18 years I represented an area next door to where these are the prime products, and I grew up in the even more upland area of Teesdale. I am concerned about these two products in particular, as well as the other £48 million that we are going to lose in this sector.

We were told at the time of the general election that our food standards in this country would be respected, and not lowered for imported food. For what reason are we seeking to reverse that commitment given in 2019? In the next group of amendments, we will talk about the concerns of the Food Standards Agency, which were flagged up in its annual report for 2021—but why should we accept products, particularly lamb and beef, that do not meet the production and food safety standards in this country, and why are we not having permanent safeguards instead of those that are time-barred? I have a further question before I get too carried away: why are the tariffs harmful to British farmers and favouring New Zealand and Australian farmers?

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for not being present during Second Reading. At that time, I was suffering from Covid and was confined to my home. Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that I am now recovered and testing negative.

Amendments 7, 9, 15 and 17 in this group deal with the impact on British farmers and the environment. I will speak to Amendments 15 and 17 in the name of my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed, to which I have added my name and which relate to the chapters on farming and the environment.