Baroness Boycott
Main Page: Baroness Boycott (Crossbench - Life peer)
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, in June 2021 when the UK and Australia signed the agreement in principle, a former Australian trade negotiator said:
“I don’t think we have ever done as well as this. Getting rid of all tariffs and quotas forever is virtually unprecedented.”
So, what are we getting in return? Animal welfare standards are low. Australia permits practices such as mulesing and allows the use of antibiotics as growth promoters. Climate policy in Australia is a joke; Australia ranks bottom out of 193 countries. It also permits the use of double the number of highly hazardous pesticides that we do in in this country, and has no set period for reviewing pesticides approvals.
It is well known that the British public do not want these low standards. A recent survey by Which? found that maintaining food standards in trade deals remains a top concern for 91% of consumers. So, what should we do? The Government must not let this zero-tariff, zero-quota deal become a blue print for deals with even larger nations like Brazil and the US. They need to accept the recommendations of the Trade and Agriculture Commission, the National Food Strategy and the Committee on Climate Change to bring forward core standards.
The Government should also support British farmers by buying more, higher-standard and higher-welfare produce for the public sector. Each year we spend £2.4 billion on food for schools, hospitals and the Armed Forces; if this were made a legal standard, it would make up a bit for the £94 million that our farmers are expected to lose as a result of this deal, which will increase our GDP by between 0.01% and 0.02%.
Finally, the Government have formally commissioned the Trade and Agriculture Commission to look at the impact of this deal on animal and plant health. Can the Minister confirm to the House tonight that the human health impacts will now be assessed by the FSA, and can she assure the House that that organisation will be adequately resourced to take forward this new and large responsibility?