Food Supply and Security

Baroness Quin Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Quin (Lab)]

My Lords, I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, both for this debate and for her campaigning work on food poverty and food insecurity.

I will raise two issues where I think the Government need to rethink their policy. The first is immigration, which has been mentioned. As well as maximising the job opportunities for our own citizens, we need a much more flexible immigration policy, particularly for the agricultural and food industries, where a range of skills is needed, from fruit picking to specialised vets. Our rigid approach ignores many of the real needs of our economy. Indeed, last night on the BBC news we saw the case of a hospital cleaner, currently doing absolutely vital work but facing an unaffordable bill for her visa extension. This is crazy. We need more flexibility and humanity in our immigration policy.

Secondly, we need to rethink our trade policy. We seem to be prioritising trade deals far beyond Europe but, for agriculture and the food industry, EU trade is vital. In the post-Covid world, and to meet environmental goals, we need to trade more, not less, with our nearest neighbours.

We have to get those important EU trade negotiations right for our economy’s sake, and because of the complications for Northern Ireland that we have heard about. The Government seems to have ruled out any alteration to the timetable, whatever the circumstances. I put it to the Minister that we have been plagued by unrealistic declamatory self-imposed deadlines for political reasons rather than economic or common-sense considerations. Can we please, from now on, make decisions based on what is best for our economic recovery, not on political dogma?

Trade Policy: Environmental Aspects

Baroness Quin Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Quin]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have held with representatives of environmental organisations about the environmental aspects of government trade policy.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have met regularly with a range of environmental organisations throughout the development of trade policy via advisory groups, ministerial round tables and individual meetings with industry bodies, regulators and think tanks. More trade should not come at the expense of the environment. Instead, trade policy can support clean growth and environmental innovation. We remain firmly committed to upholding our high environmental standards and will continue to talk to environmental groups throughout trade negotiations.

[Baroness Quin (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, but the Government’s recent pronouncements, particularly by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, seem to move away from trade with Europe towards trade with countries much further away geographically. As far as trade in goods is concerned, that is bound to mean more air miles and more fuel-consuming, polluting ocean voyages. Does the Minister not agree that it makes environmental sense to trade more with our nearest neighbours in the future and not less? What environmental assessment of this have the Government made and will he share it with Parliament?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I will have to write to the noble Baroness about any assessment. But I can say—this is really important—that we in this country believe that we have enormous potential for low-carbon exports of goods and services, which we have estimated to be between £60 billion and £170 billion by 2030. As I said in my earlier Answer, we can have more trade, but it needs to be through the prism of a low-carbon, circular economy. That is what we seek to do. Yes, we want a substantial and positive free-trade negotiation with our friends and partners in the EU, but we also think that, given the dynamic of our economy and that our low-carbon economy is increasing, there is merit in having trade negotiations in parallel with other parts of the world. We should see that as positive for the environment.