Trade (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership) Bill [HL]

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 14th December 2023 Grand Committee

I hugely support Amendment 15, tabled by my noble friend Lady Boycott, on deforestation. These forest risk commodities pose huge threats to biodiversity and our carbon drawdown. They also pose a risk to indigenous communities, as many of them come from areas where there are indigenous and forest people. There is so much evidence of dispossession of their collective customary lands, territories and resources in a number of CPTPP countries, including Peru, Mexico and Chile. The evidence base is strong. I hope the Minister can reassure us that recognition will lead to action and agrees that this amendment provides the Government with the opportunity to ensure proper monitoring and protection of these indigenous people’s rights. I look forward to his response on both amendments.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Willis, since my Amendment 27 follows on neatly from the thinking behind Amendments 15 and 16, introduced so eloquently by them.

Clearly, I made a slip of the pen when I asked a Minister of the Crown within 12 months—for which read “24 months” or longer—to publish an assessment of the impact of the implementation of the CPTPP chapter on government procurement on environmental protection, animal welfare, health and hygiene. My noble friend was very kind to take me for a cup of tea to discuss these issues on previous legislation, so he is well versed in my concerns here.

Amendment 27 is meant as a probing amendment to ensure that there are not just opportunities for fair, better trade between the CPTPP block and the UK but that we are mindful of what our consumers want and what our farmers are being asked to deliver: high food safety and high food production standards. My probing amendment seeks a commitment and a reassurance from my noble friend that those high food production standards required of UK farmers and insisted upon by British consumers are met equally in these imported products. It also asks at what point, as the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, insisted, these products imported under this Bill will be checked at the external borders.

Why is this of concern and why is it necessary? The Government’s own advisory body—the Food Standards Agency—and Food Standards Scotland go into some detail in this regard in their latest annual report, Our Food 2022. I will not rehearse exactly what the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, said, but she was very clear that there are effectively two different schemes. One is the EU, which, the report says,

“still accounts for two-thirds of all food and feed imports, and 80% of all meat and other products of animal origin”—

that must be true because it is from the FSA. It continues:

“All food and feed imported from outside the EU is subject to a series of checks to make sure it is safe. The type of checks carried out depends on the type of product and the level of risk it may pose to public, animal and plant health”.


Then, of course, there is the category of the Windsor agreement—I accept I do not fully grasp it but my noble friend will be much more familiar with it. For the purposes of this afternoon, what concerns me is what the FSA focuses on at page 49:

“Currently, all food and feed of animal origin coming from outside the EU is subject”—


only—

“to documentary checks (which confirm that appropriate documentation is supplied)”.

Therefore, we are entirely taking as read what the exporting countries are saying. The identity checks will only

“confirm that the product matches the documentation”,

and, as the noble Baroness said:

“Additional physical checks are carried out randomly on a pre-defined percentage”.


To me, that leaves a bit of risk.

The FSA and FSS go on to say:

“Overall, non-EU imports have remained largely compliant with import checks compared with”


the year before—2021—so they are saying that there is not any significant fallout. However, the FSA

“recently commissioned the food consultancy ADAS to identify measurable metrics and data sources for imported food production standards that might be used to give the public a fuller picture”.

The ADAS report highlighted three specific points, which I think are of concern this afternoon:

“A general lack of publicly available data and issues with the quality of the limited data available … A lack of measurable metrics or clear approaches to measure or monitor them”,


and

“The absence of frameworks to evaluate production standards”.


The FSA and FSS conclude:

“Although the current system of border checks gives us assurance on food safety, there is no similar system for food production standards. Being able to assess the production standards, like animal welfare or environmental standards, of imported food on a comparable basis to UK food, is essential if we as watchdogs are to be able to assess whether the food standards of the food the UK consumes has been maintained”.


That is the fundamental issue that Amendment 27 seeks to address.

I accept that the NFU regards this as a more modest and measured agreement, focusing on market access by removing trade barriers, which highlights opportunities for exporting UK products that to a high proportion have hitherto not been possible. I have not been able to find the details, but I understand that there has been an announcement of more agricultural attachés, which I applaud. The first one, which was appointed in Beijing a number of years ago, has had substantial results. We are way behind the Danes and other countries in this regard, so we are finally catching up, which is very good news indeed.

I conclude with a very simple question for my noble friend. Does he believe in his heart of hearts that there is enough in the Bill and its supplementary provisions to ensure that our consumers and our farmers, who adhere to the highest standards of food production, environmental protection and all the other things that this amendment would enhance, will not meet unfair competition from imported products from the countries that are party to this agreement?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising those points, and I am happy to provide further reassurance in terms of how we control our borders. We already import products from Australia and have done for many years; the Australia-New Zealand FTA does not make any difference to that. In fact, I can turn now to the protections we have for our agriculture sector. I follow on from comments I made in the Australia-New Zealand trade treaty debates that protecting our farming community is absolutely paramount for us. We are very sensitive to the effects that global trade flows can have on industries and communities, and it is completely right that we do what we can to ensure that we take a very gradual and phased approach to the changes of our quotas.

However, I would say that for the CPTPP, the impacts on agriculture are significantly less significant—I am sorry to have not presented a particularly clear sentence in that instance—than they are for the Australia-New Zealand trade deal, in the sense of the areas where we have increased the tariff rate quotas, in particular areas such as whole shell eggs, pork and other products, which are not at significant import volumes from countries such as Mexico, Vietnam and so on. We have phased in our tariff rate quota allowances over 10 years; we have taken a very measured approach.

I spoke recently to the president of the National Farmers’ Union, and she was very pleased. I asked whether I was able to repeat her sentiments, and she said I was. She felt very comfortable and pleased with the way we have negotiated tariff rate quotas at the levels we have ended up with. I will defer to my colleague, if she wishes to make an intervention.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I am sorry to intervene. I do not have the Trade and Agriculture Commission report in front of me, but I think there may be a difference between food safety and food production standards. Will my noble friend take the opportunity to look at the ADAS conclusions and the conclusions of the Food Standards Agency on food production standards just to be absolutely sure before we proceed to the next stage?

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

Yes, I will reply on that point. As I said, there will be differences in food production standards, production capabilities and so on because we are looking at having trade agreements with countries in different parts of the world which have different weather patterns. In many respects, the whole principle is to complement our production. We are talking here about ensuring that the safety of the British consumer is not jeopardised through FTAs, and I am comfortable expressing that very important point.

My final point is on deforestation and other standards and relates to production standards rather than simply importing goods, particularly agricultural goods. As noble Lords will know, as a result of the Environment Act, we are bringing in further protections such that companies above a certain level are obliged to ensure that their supply chain is compatible with the legal framework. I understand that that will include illegally occupied territories that have been deforested.

I am afraid that I do not have an update on the timing of that legislation. As I believe my noble friend Lord Benyon said recently, it will be taken through when parliamentary time allows. I know from my conversations with my noble friend that this is an area of great interest for him. That was not a light-hearted comment meant to play for time. Noble Lords understand that we have a parliamentary calendar and have to make sure that this is done appropriately. I cannot comment on that, but I can say that the Government are committed to ensuring that these things run in sequence as closely as possible. As I said, we are already doing business with many of these countries and, in my view, a delay of a relatively short or reasonable period would not make a significant difference to the timing. They do not have to run concurrently, as they are not linked together.

I hope I have covered all the points. I am very comfortable coming back to noble Lords—I see I have not so I shall take some interventions.