Oral Answers to Questions

Douglas Alexander Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

6. What recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of free trade deals on farmers.

[The Minister for Trade Policy and Economic Security (Mr Douglas Alexander)]

Our approach to trade deals considers the impact on and opportunities for the agricultural sector, along with other sectors of the economy, and, of course, our growth mission. The Government will publish impact assessments to aid the ratification process for new free trade agreements.

[Dr Chambers]

I worked with farmers for many years as a veterinary surgeon, and now I meet them regularly as an MP, so I am aware that farmers in Hampshire and the rest of the country were hugely disappointed when the previous Conservative Government signed trade deals that undermined our high animal welfare standards. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that after future trade deals, British farmers will not have to compete with products produced to lower animal welfare standards—for example, battery hens, or products that involve the indiscriminate use of antibiotics, which is also a public health issue? It is not only vets and farmers who are proud of our high animal welfare standards, but the British public, so will the Minister confirm that he does not want to compromise on those standards?

[Mr Alexander]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing his considerable expertise in veterinary science to the Chamber today. We will not compromise on animal welfare standards as we take forward our programme of free trade agreements. Although we might well have approached the negotiations that the previous Government undertook in a different manner, reopening them would certainly create uncertainty, which we genuinely believe would hurt UK business. We are not seeing Australian or New Zealand beef and lamb flood the UK market, and we will continue to monitor trade flows under both those free trade agreements. He makes a very fair and important point about the need to maintain welfare standards.

[Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to support small and medium-sized businesses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)]

T3. Farmers in my constituency maintain the highest animal welfare standards. They want reassurance that those will not be undercut by any future UK-US trade deal as they were by some of the deals done by the previous Government. Will the Minister assure me that the mandate and the detail of a trade deal will come to the House before the Government sign it, as many Members on the Government Front Bench agreed when they were in opposition? If not, why not?

[The Minister for Trade Policy and Economic Security (Mr Douglas Alexander)]

There is an established process in taking forward the Government’s discussions in relation to the mandate. On animal welfare standards, the Secretary of State has already alluded to how there was clearly considerable divergence during the previous attempts to conclude a free trade agreement with the United States. I assure the House that we as a new Government continue to take issues of animal welfare extremely seriously.

[Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)]

T6. In Norwich, we have many amazing businesses such as the Norwich Glass Company, Café 193 and Great Eastern Model Railways that I visited recently. One of the challenges that they, the Norfolk chamber of commerce and the Federation of Small Businesses have raised is attracting skilled staff. Will the Secretary of State set out how the Government’s skills plan will support such businesses to attract the staff they need?