UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement

Dave Doogan Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his enthusiasm and for highlighting again just how important this deal is. This is the first deal that we have negotiated from scratch as an independent trading nation. It is a broad and deep liberalising trade deal that affords, among other things, the opportunity for young Britons—anyone still under 35; sadly, that is not me—to travel and work in Australia for up to three years. Historically, to be able to get that, they had to have a commitment to work in an agricultural environment, but that will no longer be the case, so our young people will be able to go anywhere in Australia for up to three years to take their talent and get the opportunities afforded to them in any area that they want. That is a really exciting development that will continue to build on the close relationship that we want to maintain.

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

Fair play to Canberra, because they have no’ half scored a great deal with this one. It must be delicious to have scored such a great trade deal over your former overlords in London. I look forward to the benefits that this will bring to Scottish distilling—gin and whisky—but if exports of lamb and sheep meat from Australia to the United Kingdom are so insignificant to the Australians, why did you not write them out of the deal, because it is what you are getting the most heat on—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he does not refer directly to the Secretary of State.

[Dave Doogan]

I beg your pardon, Madam Deputy Speaker. Why did the Minister not seek to write those exports out of the deal, and will she take a second opportunity to answer the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith) about what she will do if she finds herself at odds with the devolved Administrations in the devolved nations? Will she simply ram through her agenda with the UK United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I am thrilled that the hon. Gentleman is so pleased for those Scottish food and drink producers, who I absolutely agree will have great opportunities. They are very exciting new market opportunities that those producers will, I have no doubt, take up with gusto.

Again, I reiterate that I am reassured by the safeguards we have brought in. The quota levels are built, but the existing quotas are not being used at all because the markets that Australia chooses to sell into at the moment—because the prices are better—are the Asia-Pacific ones, where there continues to be a growing middle class looking to have good-quality meat as part of their diet. I am looking forward to our ability to accede to the CPTPP, through which our farmers will also have opportunities to access those new markets.