Trade and Agriculture Commission: Role in International Trade Deals

Deidre Brock Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Bardell.

I must congratulate the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) on bringing this important debate to Westminster Hall, and I commend his opening speech, which was excellent—laid out with great clarity and, of course, with great knowledge, as befits his position as Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. Also made clear was his palpable exasperation with the Government’s approach to the problem. He described himself as a man of limitless patience, but that patience has run out, and we all very much hear that.

I want to mention the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), with whom I have had the pleasure of serving on several Committees and who spoke—as always, with great passion and great clarity—about the need for core standards to be established, which is an important point. She referenced the “National Food Strategy”, which I hope will not join other papers that have been submitted to this Government—I assume they are in a pile somewhere, being roundly ignored.

I must commend the speech made by the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson), which was politically brave, I have to say, but welcome. He, too, made some excellent points.

Several Members referenced the Government’s failure to follow through the promises made during consideration of the Trade Bill and the Agriculture Bill. The TAC—version 1 and version 2—was promised to allay fear on the part of farmers, who could see that Brexit was about to destroy their businesses. The commission was supposed to be in place before any trade deal was signed. It was supposed to scrutinise such deals in advance. Setting it up was one of the very few concessions that the Government made during the passage of the Agriculture and Trade Bills as the clamour from farmers and others in the food and drink sectors—desperately concerned at the impact the new trade deals would have on their livelihoods—and the increasing cries from Tory Back Benchers, who were feeling the heat from their constituents, grew ever louder. It is still not there, though.

The Secretary of State for International Trade sprinted to the finish line and the Aus-UK trade deal in principle is in place. That has provided a blueprint for future agreements, but the Government seem set on a path that ignores Parliament, the devolved Administrations, and businesses and individuals from those sectors.

Let us recall the first announcement of a TAC by the Secretaries of State for International Trade and for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It sounded impressive until we realised that it was only a temporary set-up and had no real power to do anything but wag its collective finger at Ministers. Indeed, as many people have pointed out, we are still waiting for a Government response to its first report—its first and only report. As I pointed out during the debates on the Trade Bill, not only was the temporary TAC not allowed any real power or influence over the outcomes of trade deals, but the insult was compounded by the installing on the commission of members such as the former lobbyist and free trade enthusiast—and perhaps even a posh man in a suit—Shanker Singham, who is on the record as arguing that we should accept chlorine-washed chicken, hormone-injected beef and genetically modified crops from the US. He recently described the TAC as a body

“whose primary focus was to study the interaction between trade and agricultural policy issues.”

So, “to study the interaction”—it is not quite the proactive and influential organisation the Government implied it would be.

Putting wolves in sheep’s clothing among a group of people genuinely committed to protecting livelihoods and standards in agriculture and in our enormously valuable food and drink sectors seems deeply cynical. The question I asked then was whether the commission was there to provide safeguards for our food standards or just to draw some sort of veil of decency over the Government’s indecent position on all this, and I am afraid we know the answer to that. There was a power struggle between the free trade hawks in the Department for International Trade and the poor wee lambs in DEFRA, and it is clear which Department won. The EFRA Secretary should be hanging his head in shame—well, someone should, as it certainly will not be the Secretary of State for International Trade, who seems remarkably proud of the part she is playing in all this.

Here we are, some months down the track and after the trade deal has been agreed in principle with Australia, and we are none the wiser as to who will make up the new statutory version of the TAC, which will supposedly have a more technical focus. Will it, too, be full of free trade hawks, who might, behind the scenes, seek to water down any recommendations that might at least maintain protections? Will the UK Board of Trade, boasting members such as Lord Hannan and former Aussie PM Tony Abbott—ferociously pro free trade, the pair of them—which just yesterday came out strongly against a proposal for a carbon border adjustment tax that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was reportedly considering, stamp all over the commission’s best efforts in its single-minded support of the freest of trade?

[Anthony Mangnall]

The hon. Lady is making a speech of some sort, but I am not entirely sure that the commission has been taken over by one person who has free trade ideals; it has 14 other members. This is not particularly fair. If she wants diversity on the commission, diversity should indeed be there. Does she not agree? We cannot have everyone touting the same opinion, which would be fairly pointless.

[Deidre Brock]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman examine the background of such people as Lord Hannan and Tony Abbott and figure out whether they are genuinely fit to be on the trade board. I do not believe they are. It is always good to be patronised by posh men in suits, Ms Bardell.

The International Trade Secretary said that the commission was there merely to advise on future strategy, which suggests, alarmingly, that the UK’s future trade policy will in fact be based purely on the judgment of Ministers, with no independent scrutiny until the deals are done and the hands shaken. So much for taking back control. In contrast, in the EU there is a rigorous process of consultation with industry, following a mandate approved by the EU27, and ratification by the EU27 and the European Parliament. Briefings are also provided for the institutions throughout negotiations. In the UK, we will have, in effect, trade policy by decree, with no proper scrutinising role for the UK Parliament. Thinking back to all the Brexiters’ vilification of faceless EU bureaucrats, I find that extraordinary.

It is clear that industry and Parliament were promised the TAC for the sake of quiet ministerial lives and to ward off what would have been, for the Brexiter parliamentarians particularly, some uncomfortable defeats. I am exasperated not with the NFUs, and certainly not with the businesses and individuals who were taken in by those Government promises, but with the many Conservative MPs who chose, outwardly at least, to trust the Government and their blandishments, despite their dismal track record. I leave aside, of course, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton, others who have spoken in today’s debate and others who have spoken in the Chamber during previous debates.

The TAC was a performance designed to fool constituents into thinking that something was actually being achieved, but it was nothing more than a fig leaf to cover the exposure of a successful industry to deeply unfair international competition.

The unfortunate thing for us is that, despite the disproportionate importance to our country’s economy of agriculture, fishing and the food and drinks sector, and the likely impact on Scotland’s fragile rural and coastal economies, the devolved Administrations will get little or no say in trade deals. In fact, we have seen determined efforts by the UK Government to block any involvement of the devolved Administrations. That is in marked contrast to, say, the territories and provinces of Canada, whose deep understanding of the needs of their lands and peoples is acknowledged and respected by the federal Government and which play considerable roles in trade deal negotiations.

Another disastrous situation was brought about by the UK Government: when the devolved Administrations want to stop inferior products being shipped via England to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, thanks to the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, batted through Parliament by the Government, they will not be able to do so.

I have little time left to speak, unfortunately. I would have liked to mention in more detail the NFU Cymru rep who warned, in front of the Welsh Affairs Committee, that the Australia agreement could set the bar for future trade deals. He set out the clear differences between UK and Australian products. Questions raised by the NFU in May have not yet been answered by the Government—for instance, where is the detailed economic assessment of the cumulative impact on domestic UK agriculture of all the UK’s current and future free trade agreements? It is difficult to believe that any responsible Government would jump into such agreements without, at the very least, such measures being in place.

[Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that, although chuntering and interrupting might be acceptable in some parts of the parliamentary establishment, under my chairship and in this Chamber they are not. If Members choose to give way, they choose to give way; if they do not, please be courteous and respect colleagues. There are members of the public watching, and we have to prove to them that we are a respectable bunch. I call Bill Esterson.