Australia Free Trade Agreement

Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register. I am involved with a number of Australia-facing organisations, not least as a non-executive director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Having said that, I do not look at the situation of our trade deal with Australia through rose-tinted spectacles—I will come to that later. I pay tribute to our chair and our previous chair, the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, and to the team of civil servants and advisers who have helped with the complexity of this—we are doing these trade deals for the first time in a very long time.

A week is a long time in politics. The shenanigans of the past week affect all of us, and it is not for me on this side of the House to cast aspersions elsewhere, because everyone who is involved in the political process has suffered as a consequence of what has happened over the past few weeks. This spotlight on British politics affects all of us: there are questions about professionalism, integrity and competence. Every one of us now has to show that we live by the Nolan principles and that our partners can deal with us, knowing that we are not just competent but ethical, which is why we have to adopt a serious and informed view of trade deals such as this.

I want to get rid of the hyperbole that has surrounded the publication of this deal. It is historic—okay, it is the first one, so that is fair enough. But, frankly, if a Conservative Government in the United Kingdom cannot not do a deal with a Conservative Government in Australia, no doubt with some Australians who have a right to British citizenship—more of that later—they should give up the ghost.

Hyperbole comes up when we discover how much has been left out of the agreement. Previous speakers’ points on the climate emergency—notably those of the noble Lord, Lord Oates—and the problems with animal welfare brought up by the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, are really serious. I agree with much of what the noble Duke said; standards are lower.

I will tell a funny story that my colleagues will know. I made the point that we have limits on how long a beast can travel for. As the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, pointed out, a beast can travel for 48 hours in Australia in heat above 40 degrees, which makes today’s weather here seem cool. The response was: Australian cows are tougher than British cows. I thought that that was a joke, and it was perhaps a mistake to laugh at it. It is also extremely interesting that one of the big holes in this deal is climate change. The deal was done with a climate-sceptic Government, but that Government no longer exist: they were voted out to a very large extent because of the position they took on climate change.

Returning to hyperbole, it is important to note that Australia is 10,000 miles away and has a population of about 25 million, so the impact it can have on our economy is limited. My noble friend—and he is a friend—Lord Goodlad has a postcard that shows the United Kingdom as part of one county in New South Wales. It is a huge country with economies of scale, particularly in relation to agriculture, that we cannot even conceive of. I agree with the point made by both the noble Lord, Lord Oates, and our chair that GDP is estimated to go up by 0.08% by 2035. That is £2.3 billion, which the MoD and the Scottish Government could probably spend in a morning. These are not the kinds of sums that we are looking to see coming back to our economy.

Throughout all our hearings, the NFU has been particularly critical of this deal, bearing in mind the economies of scale that Australia can have. The Government claim that UK consumers prefer British products. Well, if you go into a shop and only have a pound to spend because of the cost of living crisis, you are not going to spend it on British products sold at £2; you are going to have to buy what you can afford. This is one of the consequences of the cost of living crisis: people are not able to choose what they want; they must buy what they can afford. The growing cost of living crisis will affect that. The real fear among farming communities is that the Australian deal could undercut the UK industry, especially if Australia is frozen out of Asian markets. That could happen; there is an intense dispute between Australia and China, and a real risk that Asian markets could be opened up. Why did the Government not insist that increased access to the UK market should mean adherence to the core standards that the noble Duke, Lord Montrose, talked about on the environment and animal welfare?

Back to hyperbole again: I am sceptical about the CPTPP—the trans-Pacific partnership. This deal has been done with countries that have agreed to a set of principles not all of which are aligned to what we in Britain would seek to have. Also, it is at the other end of the world, and we are joining it because we left our neighbours. Our neighbours were in a deal to which we contributed, and now we are saying, “We want to sign up to the CPTPP”. I will have to get a whole lot of new evidence that the CPTPP will work for us, and that we will be accepted into it. The deal on acceptance may be completely different from anything we can sign up to.

During the negotiating period, the UK signed up to AUKUS, the nuclear submarine deal. Where will that fit into this deal? The rumours are that the US will get the lion’s share of contracts.

One of the most exciting things that has happened in the past six weeks is that the new Government in Australia are not climate-sceptic. Has contact been made with the new Australian Government to reopen the discussions on climate change, maybe even getting them to commit to limiting the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees centigrade? Here, as in Australia, no Government can bind their successor. That is something we should be moving on now, and not at some point far into the future. The Rudd Government signed the Kyoto Protocol within days of being elected in the mid-2000s; why could the Albanese Government not have been asked to reopen the climate change sections that are so absent from the existing deal?

Coal is a driving force in Australia. In the UK, we are establishing a real lead in carbon capture, storage and use. Years ago, development programmes took place in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria. Why is that not included in the deal? Some years ago, a carbon capture and storage international programme was started in Australia, long before the climate-sceptic Morrison Government came on the scene. There are opportunities there for British business, and I should say that I am president of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association here in the UK. We are in a position where we can move into the leadership on carbon capture and storage, and there are many jobs tied up with it.

Noble Lords will be delighted to know that there are some parts of the agreement that I am actually very happy with. I am very happy with the professional services deal, and hope that many new opportunities will open up to British business. We benefit particularly here in London from many Australian professionals, many not needing visas as they have dual nationality, which is very popular in Australia—except in Parliament where only Australian citizens may sit. Frankly, the Home Office has a very busy time before elections while everybody who is a candidate revokes their British citizenship, and a very busy time after elections when those who have not won go and take up their British citizenship again.

That is how close the relationship is and I hope it is something we can build on; it is one area where hyperbole is uncalled for. With Australia we are among friends, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, pointed out. But the flowery language used to justify a trade deal that could have been so much better is uncalled for. Now with a new Government in Australia, it is time to get that deal augmented without resort to hyperbole. It is a deal that we can work on, but the Government need a commitment to look hard at what Britain really needs, not headlines about doing the first trade deal.