Trade and Agriculture Commission: Role in International Trade Deals

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

I am very pleased to serve under your chairpersonship, Ms Bardell. As you know, I have been involved in the Council of Europe as a trade rapporteur. I am also a member of the EFRA Committee. I very much welcome everything that the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) has said. I serve on the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, and we looked at this important issue as well.

The Government refused to put a list of welfare and other standards and constraints in the Trade Bill. They said that the Trade and Agriculture Commission would act as an advisory body that would provide information to Parliament so that we could make an informed decision before trade deals were made. We can see that the Government are not taking this seriously because, since 2 March—almost 22 weeks ago—the 22 recommendations made by the Trade and Agriculture Commission have not been responded to. There is great concern that the Government are desperately trying to sign off any deal as quickly as they can, irrespective of the welfare and industrial implications. We have taken evidence to that effect in our Select Committee.

It is important that we realise that Australia will serve as a benchmark. I appreciate the intervention of the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), who seemed to think that we could have different standards for different deals, but the World Trade Organisation will judge that, so we cannot have inconsistent standards. The standards in Australia are significantly worse; the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) mentioned that cattle are allowed to travel for 48 hours instead of 24 hours, and sheep are subjected to horrendous removal of the skin on their buttocks—without anaesthetic for 44% of them, and with some sort of pain relief for 40%. The Australians said they would stop that practice in 2012, so we cannot really trust them on their word to improve welfare standards if it is not in their competitive interest to do so.

I am sitting in Wales, and I know that the average size of a sheep farm in Australia is 100 times that of the average farm here. We also know that the Government are looking to agree a tariff and quota system, with a 15-year phase-out of the tariffs. The quota that has been allowed for 2022 is four times the amount that was allowed in 2020—25,000 tonnes, rising to 75,000 tonnes by 2022. At the same time, farmers are having their farm payments withdrawn. Some environmental payments will be phased in, but not at as high a level. Obviously, there will be cash-flow issues. With lower costs, with the problems that we are experiencing over exports to the EU and with extra imports, the situation looks pretty dire from the industry’s point of view.

The Australian negotiator Dmitry Grozoubinski gave evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee, pointing out that over 20 years, the Australian share of the beef market in the United States developed from a non-entity to hover at about a third of value. The US has a much bigger population, but we eat more beef. We are in danger of being swamped by beef that is produced to lower welfare standards.

This Australia deal looks to form a precedent for the subsequent deals with Mexico, Canada, India, Vietnam and so on, and we need to get it right. We cannot have a situation where we do not get the right advice from the Trade and Agriculture Commission, and then we are faced in the final hour, as we were with the EU, with deal or no deal—this or nothing.

It is imperative that we get these things right for the long term. Let us remember that international trade deals are treaties that trump domestic law. There is no good our passing some sort of welfare or animal sentience Bill and having a special committee that says that we will embed the interests of animal welfare in all our decisions, because that law would be trumped by international trade treaties. We need to get it right; we need it to be informed; we need parliamentary democracy; and we need to work together, so let us do that. I look forward to hearing from the Minister.