Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Bill Esterson and Mark Pritchard

Committee stage
Wednesday 12th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Bill Esterson]

I can certainly rephrase it. What sort of provisions would you ideally like to see in this Bill?

[Chair]

Excellent. You confirm your experience and political agility.

Nick von Westenholz: I touched on it earlier: much as we might want to say, “We can amend the hell out of the primary legislation in order to amend the FTA,” that will not happen, and I also do not think that would be right. The FTA has been negotiated by the UK Government’s negotiators, and what they have come back with has been agreed with Australia and New Zealand. Trying to change the details of it through primary legislation would simply mean opening up the negotiations again; we would have to go back and renegotiate.

I might think that there are elements of the FTA that need renegotiating, but the way to do that is to have much more transparency and scrutiny throughout the negotiation process. As I said earlier, that was agreed in the exchange of letters between the International Agreements Committee and the Government. The Government committed to sharing their objectives before negotiations opened, to sharing updates throughout the negotiations with Parliament, and to providing for a debate on an amendable motion at the end of the process. If the Government do that, one could be pretty assured that the negotiations would end up with a result that is more palatable to a whole range of UK stakeholders. That did not happen in this case, and that is why there has been serious disquiet, particularly in the farming sector, about the deals.

Gareth Parry: Ever since the trade deals were mooted, we have been calling for a level playing field when our producers are in competition, or even greater competition, with producers in Australia and New Zealand. We could be here for hours discussing differences in production methods and standards between the countries, but my understanding is that there is no provision in the trade deals that would allow us to influence how those countries produce food and vice versa. From my understanding, that is why quotas and tariffs are used in trading across the world. If we are not allowed to influence how food is produced in another country, we use quotas and tariffs to create that level playing field. As Nick said, perhaps they cannot be incorporated to negotiate the current FTAs, but they definitely need to be considered when future trade deals come down the line.

Jonnie Hall: I thought the issues of concern were articulated very well in the first question. If they are the issues of concern, it strikes me as being a bit odd that they would be dealt with in legislation on Government procurement, rather than in the original process governing the trade agreements. I guess I am echoing what has been said by Nick and Gareth.