Free Trade Agreement: New Zealand

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

As I said earlier, it is absolutely critical to this Government that, as we find ways to grow our businesses and grow our economic growth, we also, right alongside, continue to champion, as we are with the presidency of COP26, the solutions that we all need to find to meet that climate challenge. This is a really exciting free trade agreement in which there is a very strong environment and climate change chapter, where we set out very clearly our mutual commitment to the Paris agreement and all that goes with that, and the challenge of keeping 1.5° C alive. For all our constituents, we should have confidence that that mutual support for meeting that challenge is absolutely embedded in this deal. We will have the opportunity, as our innovators and our businesses come up with new solutions, to take those goods and services to New Zealand with no tariff limitations.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Cambridge people care deeply about the quality of their food, and they will want to know that anything imported is produced to our high standards. I listened closely to the Secretary of State’s response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), and she did not address the question of the framework standards suggested by the previous Trade and Agriculture Commission. So can I ask her again: will the Government be adopting that framework or not?