Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 14th March 2023 Lords Chamber

Minette Batters, the president of the NFU, finished her speech to the recent NFU conference with a number of issues that she wanted the Government to address, including committing to promoting domestic food production, putting farmers and growers at the heart of our trade policy, guaranteeing our food security and backing British farmers and British food. It is time for the Government to do just this and add these amendments to the Bill to show that they do indeed support British farmers.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I will intervene briefly. We had a substantial debate in Committee on precisely these issues and I will not repeat the remarks I made then. I remind the House that my sister-in-law is a sheep and beef farmer in north Wales.

For these purposes, I draw attention to the fact that each of these amendments refers to the impact of the procurement chapters—on industry in Amendment 1, on farmers in Amendment 3, and so on. This allows the amendments to come within the Bill’s scope, because the Bill is about only the procurement chapters of the two trade agreements. But because the amendments are within scope and relate only to the procurement chapters, they essentially are pointless, since they do not allow for an impact assessment of the impact on farming; as far as I can tell, the procurement chapters do not impact on farming.

I looked at those chapters; I was a member of the International Agreements Committee, which looked carefully at these two agreements and reported to the House on them. Where New Zealand is concerned, the benefit of the procurement chapter in the short run is modest and principally relates to housing and access to procurement of national parks in New Zealand. Where Australia is concerned, the agreement essentially enables us to access procurements at a sub-federal level, but given the thresholds I am unaware of any likelihood of any significant impact on UK agricultural exports to Australia or vice versa, since these are not necessarily public procurements. The question is whether farmers and agricultural produce from Australia and New Zealand have access to the UK market more generally. All these amendments are pointless in this context since they relate only to the procurement chapters.

I hope we get on with this. When we last spoke, I said that I hoped we might have completed the passage of the Bill by early March. The whole point of the Bill is to enable these chapters to be brought into our domestic legislation and to allow the free trade agreements to be ratified and brought fully into force. I had hoped that we would have done it earlier than this, but thus far we have not.

I have one point on impact assessments, since the purpose is to try to get impact assessments. I still do not understand why those who are asking for these assessments to be made have not recognised that the Trade and Agriculture Commission produced reports last year on each of these free trade agreements. The International Agreements Committee and the International Trade Committee in the other place had commitments from Ministers that there would be a monitoring report every two years and a comprehensive evaluation of the free trade agreement after five years. That seems a perfectly reasonable proposition, so I cannot see that these amendments have either procedural or substantial merit.

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The Government’s rhetoric on some of these agreements is not matched by reality when we know what the direct impact will be. Even at this late stage, therefore, I hope that the Minister will be able to offer some reassurance to our sector.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

Going back for a moment to the point the noble Lord made earlier about the sale of food to public bodies and these procurement chapters, does he recognise that the purchase of food locally by schools, hospitals and the like will almost certainly not be, as I judge it, within the definition of covered procurement and not above the threshold; and, therefore, the procurement chapters, in so far as they extend procurement opportunities to Australia and New Zealand providers under this Bill—and under the Procurement Bill—really would not be relevant to that local provision of food?

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord; he knows I respect his work on this area very much. I would like the Minister to confirm that that will be the case, because I am not convinced. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, in her place. She was kind enough to have a meeting with me about it. I am not yet convinced, because of the elements within the Procurement Bill which will require there to be no discrimination for any of the treaty countries for public procurement in this country, that what he is arguing for, which is effectively a carve-out, will in fact be the case. My understanding is that under the Procurement Bill, we are unable to discriminate against any of the treaty suppliers. I am not sure that a public body in this country would be able to discriminate. I hope the Minister will be able to clarify that point.

The reason this is relevant and why I quoted the then candidate for leader of the Conservative Party’s commitment to 50% of public procurement in this country being local is that I do not know how that squares with what will be the legal requirement under the Procurement Bill that we are then unable to discriminate against Australian and New Zealand produce which will enter the market. I do not know how that squares.

I am simply asking the questions, because we have not had more meat on the bone, if that is not too inappropriate an analogy, about what has been published as a government commitment and is in the Procurement Bill. If the noble Lord has any other answers, I am happy for him to intervene on me. I do not know how he knows how this might be squared. I do not at this moment. That is why part of our agriculture sector is also questioning how these two commitments will come together. The different sequencing of this Bill and the Procurement Bill is relevant. Because it also sets the precedent for Canada and Mexico, with new produce coming in, and if these are gateway agreements for CPTPP, we are looking at potential competition with all CPTPP members for public procurement of produce. If you are a public body in the UK looking at cost-effective procurement of food for schools or hospitals and you are unable under the Procurement Bill to discriminate against Australian or New Zealand produce or that from any CPTPP country and state that there is local producing, similarly, I do not know that it is matched.

I hope that, at this late stage, the Minister can offer some reassurance. I hope that he is able to explain how these commitments to 50% of procurement can be matched, as well as give further reassurances, specifically on the impact on tenant farmers and biodiversity. There are genuine concerns here, I do not think they will go away and we need to offer that reassurance to these sectors, which are so vital to our rural economy.

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[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I appreciate the noble Lord’s comments and was about to come on to that when I said “conclusion”. Sadly, my conclusions can run to several topics, the noble Lord’s being one of them.

It is correct that the procurement legislation prohibits a nationalist tilt towards procurement, which is what we want. When it comes to government procurement, we want the highest quality products at the lowest possible prices, and I would like to think that they will be British products. It will reassure this House to know that 81% of all beef sold in this country is under British brand labels. Only 19% international beef is sold in this country in the first place. The assumption is that you are already looking at a very high level of local procurement. A 50% threshold would be logical for something such as beef, which already fits into that.

There is a further question and further investigation regarding whether procurement can be assessed in terms of other relevant factors. I am happy to have a further debate about that in general. It can apply to a wide range of concepts. It could even apply to how energy is sourced and supplied. There is always work defining what concepts such as sustainability or relevance to the environment could be in terms of transportation distances and so on. They are discussions to have. I have been having discussions in other areas, for reasons not linked to these trade discussions, on whether these factors can be brought to bear in procurement. We are very wary of introducing anything other than straightforward procurement rules, but I assure the noble Lord that—as with beef, where 81% is already UK beef—it would seem logical that a very high proportion of produce is sourced locally.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

At the risk of delaying us on this point, the access that is given through these procurement chapters and for treaty state suppliers under the Procurement Bill is to cover procurement, which means procurements larger than the threshold amounts set out in the schedule to the Procurement Bill. For example, for local food production for a set of schools, this would have to be a procurement over £213,000. In truth, the issue is not whether there is an Australian company that is likely to bid for such a procurement, because these procurements will be smaller than that. It is whether beef from Australia is in this country and in circulation in their market which might then be used by local suppliers—but then they are a local supplier to the school.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I have appreciated my noble friend’s extremely positive interventions and applaud wholeheartedly his phrase, “Let’s get on with it.” He has also been extremely helpful in pointing out the specifics of the Bill and the difficulty of attaching these sorts of amendments to it, although I am very sympathetic to the overall philosophy of the desire for proper impact assessments, which we have had and agree to wholeheartedly in terms of the two-year and the five-year monitoring report. I stress again that this treaty does not create a precedent. However, it does create a model. I am very impressed and support wholeheartedly the flexibility of this agreement because it will allow us and allow noble Lords to call Ministers to account on a constant and rolling basis concerning the effectiveness of these trade treaties.

I believe that I have covered most of the points raised. I am very happy to continue a dialogue around these and any other measures that may not have been covered on this important piece of legislation. We believe, and I believe passionately, that this trade Bill is a good thing for this country. It will be of huge benefit to our citizens and our consumers. It will give us enormous additional security and allow us to have a closer relationship with two nations that have been, since their founding, sister nations of this country.

I am continually being asked by the representatives of Australia and New Zealand when this treaty will come into force because, as soon as it does, and only then, their businesses and citizens, and ours, will be able to take advantage of it. I call on this House to support the Government in this mission. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, to withdraw his amendment, and for the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, not to move theirs.