UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement

Duncan Baker Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

In this free trade agreement, the UK and Australia have committed to combat illegal logging and related trades, which, as the hon. Lady pointed out, is critical to the preservation of our natural environment and that critical biodiversity—an area that the UK has led on in the COP26 discussions led by Lord Goldsmith through the nature track in Glasgow. The environment chapter in this free trade agreement recognised the importance of sustainable forestry management, and it strengthens our relationship of co-operation and information sharing on a bilateral basis. We have also agreed provisions on promoting and co-operating on the transition towards a circular economy in reducing waste that goes beyond the CPTPP arrangements that Australia has with its neighbours, alongside working in further areas such as air quality and marine litter. There is a really important starting point for the work that we will do together with Australia to ensure that deforestation becomes a thing of the past.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

We have had another fantastic trade deal that epitomises the cornerstone of one of the reasons people voted to leave the European Union, which was to set our own independent trade policy. We have heard a lot about agriculture but not a lot about young people, particularly professional young workers. Will my right hon. Friend explain the benefits of this deal for those young professional workers who will now have easier access to the wonderful lived experience of working down under?

[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.