Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill

Debate between Angus Brendan MacNeil and Neil Hudson

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar). I welcome the chance to speak in this important debate as a Member of Parliament representing a rural constituency up in Cumbria that has a huge agricultural and farming footprint. I also speak as a vet who has worked on farms in the UK and in Australia, and I am a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. Quite rightly, there has been much talk about the International Trade Committee’s great work in looking at the trade agreements. The EFRA Committee has produced a report on the Australia trade deal, to which I refer colleagues. I preface my comments by very much welcoming the new Prime Minister and the new Government who are coming in. I am fully supportive of them. However, as a constituency MP and given my interests, I do need to speak out.

I am broadly very supportive of trade deals in principle, and I absolutely adore Australia. I cannot be the only Member in the House who welled up this summer when watching the last episode of “Neighbours”. I am very supportive of everything that goes on in Australia. However, as I have said in the Chamber before, trade deals need to be fair to both partners—as the Australians would say, “You would want a fair crack of the whip”—and the trade deal with Australia is, unfortunately, imbalanced.

Earlier this year, in our UK winter—the Australian summer—I spoke of the one-sided nature of the Australia trade deal, which was reminiscent of the one-sided nature of the men’s Ashes cricket series that was ongoing. We will all be well aware that the England cricket team are now doing a lot better—the New Zealand cricket team will testify to how England have really lifted their game. I firmly believe that we must take a lesson from that, apply a bit of the Ben Stokes “Bazball” technique and go back into bat on these trade deals to make them much more level between the two trading partners.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, for giving way. He makes a very interesting point. A trade deal depends on our own inputs and balances, and on where we stand in the world. The trade deal that one country might do with another will be very different from others, and they are all different in certain ways. I am pretty sure that if, for instance, an independent Wales, with its big sheep interest, was making this trade agreement with Australia, it would be very different. A Wales in the UK making this trade agreement is as it is, and a Wales in the European Union would have a different trade deal again.

The hon. Gentleman makes a point about where we strike a balance. Very often, it depends on where we stand and what our inputs are. I think his fear, which I share, is that the trade deal has been so good for Australia that it just cannot believe its luck. That is a bit disappointing and it is why we should have had parliamentary scrutiny earlier, because we might have reached a different deal that we could all have been happier with. We think free trade is a good idea, but it is just about where we put the balance. Where we stand as Scottish MPs, unfortunately, is that it is not as good as we would have wanted.

[Dr Hudson]

I thank the Chair of the International Trade Committee for his intervention, and I will come on to his point about scrutiny later. He makes fair points. Individual trade deals are tailored towards trading partners and the home country—they are bespoke. The important thing we need to think about with Australia and New Zealand is that they are the first trade deals through the gate. They set a precedent. That is why we need to get them right and why the scrutiny needs to be right.

We have heard talk about some of the products that might be involved. This trade deal is more than Tim Tams and some bottles of Hunter Valley shiraz coming over in exchange for Scotch whisky. There are key challenges for our home domestic market. Specifically, I will talk about the beef and sheepmeat sectors, which feel very much under threat. I speak regularly to my Cumbrian farmers in farms and in livestock markets, and they are relaying to me their concerns about what the precedent set by those deals will do for their futures. We have heard from hon. Members on both sides of the House about smallholding farms and tenant farmers—the people who are really on the edge with their profit margins. We need to keep a close eye out for them.

So, here we are today. The Australian free trade agreement has been through the CRaG process. We have talked about the CRaG process. Sadly, it ended on 20 July, which was too late for us in this Chamber to do anything about it, in terms of scrutiny or voting on it. There was no option for MPs. For two and a half to three years, I have been calling for MPs to have the ability to delay, amend or potentially reject trade deals if they are not in the best interests of our constituents.

Some of the concerns have been highlighted today. Some have been highlighted by the International Trade Committee and some by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. The EFRA Committee produced a series of recommendations for the Government to take forward in future trade negotiations. Much of what we heard in the EFRA Committee was about speculation and forecasts, and we talked about the accuracy of forecasts. There are a lot of unknowns in relation to how much produce will, ultimately, come our way. When we questioned our experts, there was still a bit of crystal ball—“We still don’t know how much is going to come in.” That is why we need key safeguards for protection and to ensure we can slow down the supply of products if they come in at levels that were not predicted.

Currently, the Australian meat market is pivoted to south-east Asia. In global geopolitics, we have seen in recent months things that we did not predict, such as what has happened in Ukraine, and what that has meant for the world’s food security and the movement of food supplies around the world. We just do not know what will happen throughout the world in the future. At the moment, the Australasian market is pivoted to south-east Asia, but what if, for some reason, it needed to pivot to the west and to Europe? We just do not know. That is why we need strong safeguards.

As a rural MP and a veterinary surgeon, I am concerned and passionate about animal health and welfare standards. We should be very proud of the fact that our Cumbrian farmers and UK farmers farm to the highest animal welfare standards in the world. There is an animal welfare chapter in the Australian trade deal but, unfortunately, there is a discussion to be had about the fact that that is not subject to the dispute settlement mechanism. I believe that the teeth of that chapter are not sharp enough.

Members have touched on the concept of tariff rate quotas. As we have heard—we on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee have looked at this issue—the levels of the tariff rate quotas are very high. Therefore, the levels are very high for the produce that is coming in during that phased period of the next 15 years. That period is time-limited and, at the end of the 15 years, all bets are off and we move to free trade. I postulate that the tariff rate quota mechanism needs to be more precise and sophisticated, so that if the flow of produce coming into this country is too high, we can turn it down. It is important to have safeguards through core standards and appropriate tariff rate quota mechanisms.

I have been labelled a protectionist, but this is not about protectionism; it is about standing up for our values and what we believe in. I believe that we in the UK can be a beacon to the rest of the world in the way that we farm and through our animal health and welfare standards. That is why these precedent trade deals are so important: we can send out the message, “If you want to trade with us, bring your standards up to those that the UK population wants from our UK farmers.” These deals are precedents, and this is not about protectionism, but about standing up for our beliefs and values.

I am very glad that, throughout this process, when I and colleagues have raised concerns about some of the products that could come in, the Government have confirmed that a ban will be maintained on hormone-treated beef and chlorine-washed poultry so that it is illegal for that to come into the country. It is important that that is on record. That is brought into this debate a lot and it is a bit of a red herring, because those products will not come in through these trade agreements.

We have talked a bit about chlorine-washed poultry. It is important to mention that the chlorine washing process does not kill all the pathogens, as a study from the American Society for Microbiology in 2018 showed; it just makes many of them undetectable in the lab. That needs to be put on record.

There are practices that people use in farming around the world that we are concerned about in this country. We have heard much about mulesing in Australia. I firmly believe that if we had taken the advice of the Trade and Agriculture Commission and put core standards in our trade deals, that issue would have been resolved. If we put in a red line and said, “We do not find these certain types of products acceptable in this country,” that would influence production methods around the world.

There is competition between New Zealand and Australia in rugby, cricket and other sports, and it is a shame that the New Zealand deal did not land just in front of the Australian deal, because in many areas, the New Zealand farming systems are more akin to ours and are often ahead of the curve on many issues. New Zealand has banned such things as mulesing. It is also ahead of the curve on non-stun slaughter of animals, so it is a shame, strategically, that the New Zealand deal did not land first, because in setting a precedent it would have had a knock-on effect on other deals.

I also get very frustrated in this debate when people stand up in this Chamber and outside and give Australian farmers a real kicking. As I said, I am passionate about Australia. When people say, “The Australians have no concept of animal husbandry or animal welfare,” that is deeply offensive to the vast majority of Australian farmers. I have worked as a vet on farms in Australia. They have some fantastic farming systems and are passionate about animals, as we are, so to say that they have no concept of animal husbandry is deeply wrong and offensive. It is important that we bear that in mind. As we have heard today, because of geography, environment and regulation, it is cheaper to produce beef and sheepmeat in Australia than it is in the United Kingdom, so we have a competitive disadvantage for our UK farmers.

We have heard from many colleagues on both sides of the House about scrutiny of and input into free trade agreements. The first iteration of the Trade and Agriculture Commission made clear recommendations about inserting core standards for things like animal welfare and environment into our trade negotiations. Sadly, the Government chose not to take that advice.

The second iteration of the TAC is a lot narrower and more targeted in scope. Quite alarmingly, when we questioned it for our scrutiny report, we found that it is not very well resourced. Its chair actually admitted to us that he had to supplement the commission’s administrative support with university moneys from his own research allowance. Our report makes clear recommendations to the Government that the Trade and Agriculture Commission needs to be adequately funded and resourced. It has some big work coming up with the CPTPP, so it needs more administrative support. If we set something up, it has to be resourced properly.

We have also heard about a lot of the challenges that our UK farmers face. Throughout the pandemic, people in the food production sector were quite rightly acknowledged, recognised and clapped as key workers. Sadly, I feel that we are now moving away from that: people are forgetting how important farmers and food producers, deliverers and processors are to our communities. Food security was brought into sharp relief during the pandemic and has been brought into even sharper relief by the hideous war in Ukraine. It is so important that we acknowledge and support the people who are producing and providing food for us and those elsewhere in the world. We need to understand the huge challenges that they are facing with their fuel costs. All households and businesses across the country are facing the cost of living crisis in fuel and energy, but in the farming sector the costs of fuel, energy, animal feed, fertiliser and supply have rocketed.

Importantly, our Select Committee has launched an inquiry into food security. I have spoken about it before in this Chamber, but I am concerned about the resilience of the UK’s food security and about some of the inputs, such as labour. We need to look at a good, sensible and pragmatic visa system that allows people to come and work in different sectors. Another input is fertiliser. Last year we heard the alarming news that CF Fertilisers had mothballed its complex in Ince, and just three or four weeks ago it announced that it was ceasing ammonia production at its Billingham complex in the north-east. That has a huge impact on the production not only of fertiliser, but of carbon dioxide.

CO₂ is so important for our food and beverage sector, but what really worries me as a vet is that it is needed for the humane slaughter of poultry and pigs. If we end up without adequate supplies of CO₂, we may see more of what we have seen over the past few months: healthy pigs being culled on farms in the UK and put in the ground, not into the food production sector. Having been involved as a vet in culling animals during the foot and mouth crisis, I can tell the House from personal experience how upsetting it is and how deeply damaging it is to the mental health of vets, farm workers and abattoir workers if animals have to be killed senselessly. We have to ensure that we are resilient in our food and in all the inputs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Hudson]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. He is right that the Government must report on food security every three years, but our Committee—the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—made a recommendation that the report should be annual. We need that report on the country’s food security, especially now that we are facing these awful crises with an impact on so many levels of the food production sector.

I have mentioned some of the inputs, including fertiliser, but our UK farmers face other challenges. The EFRA Committee has just launched an inquiry into the environmental land management transition, looking into uptake and asking for a status report on how it is going now that we have left the European Union, and the different way in which farmers and land managers will be rewarded for farming and looking after their land. We want to see how that is going, and whether we need any rethink or any adaptation because of the acute situation in which farmers find themselves.

My plea to the Government is this. In the context of the current deals and that of future trade deals, our UK farming and food production sector is under challenge and under threat. Let us not challenge it further with our international trade policy. So many other things can happen in rural communities, such as infections disease outbreaks, mental health challenges and isolation. In the EFRA Committee—I am referring to it quite a lot today, because we have already heard a great deal from members of the International Trade Committee—our inquiry into rural mental health is approaching completion. It deals with the stress factors in rural communities that affect farmers and livestock managers: the threats that they face have a real impact on their communities and on their mental health.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

This debate seems more like a discussion at times, but a good discussion. The hon. Gentleman has made an important point. Let us say that we are negotiating a trade deal that will result in both winners and losers in our own country—forget Australia—and the losers happen to be in, say, rural Wales and the winners happen to be, say, City financial whizz kids. If there is then a demand for some sort of fiscal transfer within the country to offset the damage from the new policy, it will often be resisted by those who have benefited, and there will be no cognisance in the policy that has been negotiated of the more important point that the hon. Gentleman is making about the damage that the new outlook and the new policy will inflict on individuals who find that their industry has been undermined and kicked away.

[Dr Hudson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I think it important that when we are striking trade deals with other countries, all parts of the United Kingdom—all parts of the devolved nations, rural and urban—should benefit from those deals. I hope that the Government will take away the strong message that this comes down to individuals, it comes down to small businesses, it comes down to tenant farmers, it comes down to abattoir workers: a great many people need to be considered in this. We need to stop challenging our farmers and food producers, and help them along the way.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, I welcome the new Government coming in today, and I was pleased that the new Prime Minister, during the leadership campaign, talked about unleashing British food and farming to improve food security. I was also pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak) talked about supporting farmers in future trade deals. However, I would gently say to the Government, “Let us be doing that with our current trade deals, not just the future ones.” Yes, the ink is drying on our deals and perhaps it is too late to change parts of them, but we must ensure that these precedent deals set a template with which we are comfortable when we are negotiating with other countries.

I am supportive of the Prime Minister and the Government, but on this issue—for my constituency and, speaking as a veterinary surgeon, for Cumbrian and for UK farming—I want to stand up and say clearly that I have real concerns about what we are doing as a country, and that we need to ensure that we do not make mistakes. I think the scrutiny process that has been mentioned so often during the debate would have helped us, and we would not be in this position today.

I apologise for not being here for the start of the debate. I was chairing a Bill Committee elsewhere.

I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman is saying. However, he mentioned a template for future deals. Does it concern him not only that the Australia and the New Zealand deals done were without proper scrutiny because of the way in which the CRaG process was bypassed, but—given that he is involved in agriculture through the Committee and, probably, through his own past as well—that farmers in this country in particular have been sold down the river? This is nothing like what should have been done; for instance, the consultation with the National Farmers Union and others was not as good as it should have been. If this is indeed a template for future deals, it does not bode well for the future.