Trade and Agriculture Commission: Role in International Trade Deals

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Neil Parish

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the role of the Trade and Agriculture Commission in international trade deals.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I am delighted to see support from colleagues from across the House on this issue, including the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), a former member of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and a very good one; the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies); and my hon. Friends the Members for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) and for Keighley (Robbie Moore), who are all current members of the Committee. I also thank my fellow Devon MPs, my hon. Friends the Members for East Devon (Simon Jupp) and for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), who also join us.

I called for this debate because I am concerned about the lack of urgency from the Government in matters relating to the Trade and Agriculture Commission—both the non-statutory body and the statutory body. During the passage of the Agriculture Act 2020 and the Trade Act 2021, serious concerns were raised by me and many other MPs, as well as the farming sector and non-governmental organisations, about the potential impact of free trade deals on the UK’s high environmental and animal welfare standards. The creation of the TAC was important in reassuring us that the Government listened to those concerns. The non-statutory TAC published a report on 2 March this year, providing the Government with 22 recommendations on how best to advance the interests of British food, farming, producers, consumers and trade deals. Summer recess is upon us, Minister, and we are almost five months on from that report, but we are still in the dark about what the Government will provide in response.

I know the Minister is very capable, but I cannot understand why it has taken him and his Department so long to response to the Trade and Agriculture Commission. I have repeatedly asked the Trade Secretary when she will respond the report. As Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, I first wrote to her on 29 April. I wrote to her again on 26 May after I did not receive a reply. I then received what I can only describe as a holding reply from the Trade Secretary on 10 June. To be blunt, Minister, the Trade Secretary’s reply says very little and I suspect was just an attempt to buy more time. In her reply, the Trade Secretary agreed that the UK’s approach to agrifood should be “bold and ambitious”—hear, hear, I agree—but refused to expand on the Government’s response to the exact recommendations made by the TAC or provide any date for when the Government will respond. I have since written to her again to press on this.

Perhaps our able Minister can update us on when the response will be published. It needs to be now. We have an agreement in principle with Australia, but we are not clear whether the Government have ever read the report and taken it on board before pursuing a trade deal that directly impacts on our farming sector and the quality of food, both environmentally and in animal welfare. It is also as though the Government intend to bypass the advice they commissioned. I am, to say the least, disappointed about that. During the passage of the Agriculture and Trade Acts, I was led to believe that the TAC would be a useful tool to help us during negotiations because it would clearly set out our trade policy. However, I received a response from the Minister very recently that stated:

“The role of the Trade and Agriculture Commission is not to advise on negotiations.”

Likewise, the Secretary of State has said that the TAC

“was tasked with providing advice towards an overall strategy regarding the UK’s future trade policy”

but was not

“set up to influence…trade deals.”

That is putting the cart before the horse. We should be basing our trade negotiations on an overall strategy, especially when those deals will set the tone for what will follow.

We urgently need a response to each of the 22 recommendations in the TAC report. In case Members have not read it, one of the most important recommendations was that we establish a list of core standards that would safeguard us in all future trade deals. That would prevent our farmers from being undercut by imports that have been produced in ways that we would not tolerate.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is making compelling points. Can I suggest to him that in fact, with the agreement with Australia, the pass has already been sold? What other country with which we have now to enter into agreements is going to accept anything less than Australia has been given?

Fisheries Bill

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Neil Parish

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 21st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Carmichael]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. The root of the disjunction between science and the industry is the fact that the advice that is given is often based on data that are very old—almost two years old by the time they are used for decision making. Does he agree that in this brave new world of fisheries management, one of our first priorities ought to be the quick and dirty use of the data that are being harvested by the scientists?

[Neil Parish]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention—he is right. I think that DEFRA is working much more with fishermen, and they will need to work more closely to ensure that the collection of that information happens more quickly. We also need to learn from the monitoring of how fish are caught and what is happening on the fishing boats, because all this is important. There needs to be trust between the fishermen and DEFRA officials, because that is sometimes lacking. There is a great deal that can be positive. I know that the Secretary of State and our Fisheries Minister are really driving towards that, and I think we can do it.

Common Fisheries Policy (Reform)

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Neil Parish

Thursday 10th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Carmichael]

That was very much the context of the day. My only rejoinder to Mr Park’s statement would have been that the same was also true of Ministers and officials: the further removed they were from the management of stocks, the easier it was for them to impose unworkable deals that caused an enormous range of difficulties in practical terms. I exempt the incumbent Minister from that; he has always demonstrated a tremendous willingness to engage with industry and has a good working understanding of it.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one of the great problems of the common fisheries policy is that even the regional organisations are too large? If local fishermen realise that if they conserve fish they can get them at another time, they are more likely to go along with the measures. The trouble with the common fisheries policy is that there are too many fishing, from too far and wide, who are really not concerned about conserving fish now—they know very well that, if they do, somebody else will get them before they do. That is one of the worst problems of the CFP.

[Mr Carmichael]

There is not much that I disagree with there. The essence of the problem that the hon. Gentleman highlights is that fisheries management is something done to the industry and to the communities affected, rather than being something that they feel they have any ownership of, or are able to influence. Although there have been an enormous number of problems with the regional advisory councils, they have been a source of enormous progress and benefit and are certainly infinitely preferable to what we had before they were established, when everything was done in Brussels with simply no opportunity to challenge it.

How we have been able to build partnerships between fishermen, conservationists and scientists, through the regional advisory structures, is exceptional. That has been taken on by various people. I commend the Minister’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), for the work he did in the lead-up to landing a reformed common fisheries policy, because that developed the first iteration of the regional advisory councils to the point where they might even become regional management councils. That is the first point that I would like the Minister to take on. The advisory councils themselves are best placed to author the next iteration of their development. With the history of joint working and the body of expertise within the councils, that could now be done to improve and speed up the present rate of change.