Trade Policy: Environmental Considerations

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

The most effective audit we have is the deep scrutiny that noble Lords give our trade agreements and trade policy. We have some of the most advanced scrutiny mechanisms in the world, and noble Lords do a good job of auditing us and holding us to account.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

Let us test that. On 14 September, the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee said that the Government were kicking the can down the road or “running the clock down” on the establishment of the Trade and Agriculture Commission. Can the Government update us on when it will be established on a statutory basis? For full scrutiny, will the Minister ensure that the scrubbed legal texts of the Australia and New Zealand deals will go to the statutory Trade and Agriculture Commission, so that it can fulfil its duty and report to us, before we are asked to ratify those agreements?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

My Lords, as soon as I heard the magic words “Trade and Agriculture Commission” being mentioned by the noble Lord, I thought he was going to congratulate me on that fact that the Government have today published our response to the report of the Trade and Agriculture Commission on how best to advance the issues of British farmers, food producers and consumers in future trade policy. As to his point, there is a very narrow difference between the TAC that has been set up and the statutory TAC. As the noble Lord knows, that difference entirely arose because the Trade Act last year did not allow the payment of allowances to commission members given the way it was assembled at that time. It has become clear to us that, to allow for the best membership of the TAC, some form of allowance—not generous, I hasten to add—should be paid to its members. The members who will form part of the statutory TAC are those who have been appointed today to form this new TAC, and we should welcome them to their important roles.