CPTPP (International Agreements Committee Report)

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Grand Committee

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I declare my interest as president of the Rural Coalition. I have to say I rise with a certain hesitation, because so many noble Lords speaking in this debate are either part of the International Agreements Committee, and have been working on this for so long and know so much of the detail, or indeed have been involved in international trade. I have none of that experience at all.

My particular reason for wanting to speak are two areas that I would like to focus on for a few moments, to do with the whole issue of environment and climate change, as we are seeking to trade internationally—although I note that the noble Lord, Lord Oates, has powerfully laid out much of that. So, I will not actually say much more on that; I will ditch that bit of what I was going to say. Let us keep going.

What I would like to do is to talk a little bit about agriculture and farming. I come from that background, and it is something that I am absolutely passionate about. I believe it is crucial, as we think about our future in the world—a world that we have seen dramatically, over the past two years, is sometimes vulnerable and susceptible to shocks and things that we could not possibly have conceived would have affected us—to highlight the importance of food.

In one sense, I am stating the absolute obvious, and please forgive me if I am just being really simplistic. I often hear it said in your Lordships’ House that the primary duty of government in the defence of the realm. That is certainly very important, but actually feeding the realm is pretty much up there, because if we have not fed people we will not have a nation within a very short time. We only have a few weeks of food in the country at any one time, and yet we are one of the most prolific producers of food. We have some of the best agricultural land in the world, and we have some of the best farmers. I am privileged to live and work in Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. We have people who are absolutely at the forefront, in the world, or what is going on in agriculture. We have Rothamsted, and we have some fascinating new work going on with some of the most advanced forms of caring for soil, precision drilling and precision farming. It really is quite remarkable what is going on.

Let me return, for a few moments, to the whole issue of food. It is absolutely right that this is going to be part of our future trade agreements. It is very exciting that we are now looking at developing further trade agreements in the Indo-Pacific—I am personally very committed to that; I think it is excellent that it is going ahead—but we must have some special pleading for our farmers and our basic food security. Within days of a shortage, in a climate crisis, we can suddenly find that food supplies dry up. We have to ensure that we have a good, solid supply of food. Of course, we will never be entirely self-sufficient, because many of the more exotic foods that we want have to be grown elsewhere. It makes sense to have them come in, but our basic farming capacity is absolutely crucial. In the post-Brexit environment, there is no doubt that there is a gulf and growing mistrust between many members of the agricultural community and the UK Government, when it comes to negotiating trade deals. The president of the NFU recently described British food producers as pawns in post-Brexit trade agreements and was particularly critical of the FTAs signed with Australia and New Zealand. I hope, with the new Trade and Agriculture Commissioner officially up and running, there will be the heightened security of the cost-benefit analysis of trade deals and so on, of our agricultural sector. This will, I hope, ensure the interests of domestic food producers are protected.

The UK has, in principle, agreed to begin meaningful negotiations with Canada on a more comprehensive trade agreement in April this year. Canada, being one of the largest food producers in the world will, no doubt, have reviewed the terms offered to Australia and New Zealand on agricultural products, and I am sure that it will push for very similar access, or even better access. What is worrying is, as part of the CPTPP negotiations, Canada will have every right to delay ratifying our entry until we have offered them a similar status to Australia and New Zealand on agricultural products as part of the bilateral FTA due to be negotiated. Of course, this is hypothetical, but while it would be nice to believe these negotiations will be conducted in good faith, as a realist I know, from having spoken to people who have been involved in these negotiations, just how tough they will be and the sort of access to our agricultural markets that others will demand.

We have very high standards for animal welfare and how we grow our crops, and there is a really important issue here, as many of our farmers are concerned that some of those standards will be compromised. The fear in the long run is that, for our agricultural products to be competitive in trade deals that we will have voluntarily entered into, farms will be forced to consolidate into much larger commercial units. That is going on fairly steadily anyway, but is likely to speed up much more. The danger is that it will affect this country’s rural communities and rural sustainability. Our rural communities depend on the agricultural industry; they are rooted in it and gathered all around it.

Should we join the CPTPP, we might well have to deliberate and negotiate on China’s accession. Regardless of the economic issue surrounding state-owned enterprise—the obvious barrier to China joining in the near future—it is vital that the UK can retain an effective and moral approach to foreign trade and policy. The Government were not keen on the various iterations of the so-called genocide amendment to the Trade Bill, which many of us engaged with, which would suspend trade with a country where it was determined that genocide was being committed. These issues are hypothetical, but we have to think carefully about them. My fear is that, via the CPTPP, we could undergo a greater economic integration with China and absolve ourselves of the right—or, more worryingly, the ability—to criticise the actions of the Chinese Government.

I hope that, when the Minister responds, he might be able to set his comments in the slightly broader context of issues of food security and the environment as we look to these future trade partnerships.