Draft European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Strategic Partnership Agreement) (Canada) Order 2018 Draft European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Framework Agreement) (Australia) Order 2018 Draft European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Partnership Agreement on Relations and Cooperation) (New Zealand) Order 2018

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 General Committees

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is very nice to see you in the chair, Mr Sharma. I will begin by asking the Minister a couple of questions that apply to all the draft orders, and I will then ask him a couple of specific questions on the individual draft orders.

I asked the Minister yesterday how the Government intend to manage our foreign policy relationship with the European Union after Brexit. He did not have time to respond, but the issue has arisen again. We have raised this with the Government on several occasions. [Interruption.] The Minister says that this has nothing to do with the draft orders, but they are EU arrangements with third countries. We are, presumably, taking them forward because we think it is worth having such arrangements, and in the future we will presumably want to co-operate with other Europeans in conducting our relationships with other countries around the world. How does the Minister plan to do that?

My second question is why each of these countries have a different status. Why is it a strategic partnership with Canada, a framework agreement with Australia and a partnership agreement on relations and co-operation with New Zealand? I can see that they are useful for the other EU member states, but I am not clear what these European arrangements add substantively to the relationships that we already have with these Commonwealth countries.

The agreements are not free trade agreements but precursors to them. As it happens, I am sceptical about CETA. I got the impression when we were negotiating it that people who had not read it thought it was absolutely splendid, but that those of us who had read it had reservations.

The Minister may not know the answer, but on the EU-Australia framework agreement, why would Australia prioritise a free trade arrangement with the British over an arrangement with the European Union after Brexit, given that its trade with us is worth some £13 billion a year and its trade with the European Union is worth some £40 billion a year. Where are we in the queue? That is my basic question. It is interesting that there is a commitment to work to implement the agreement between the European Union and Australia, establishing a framework for the participation of Australia in European crisis management operations. There is a similar commitment in the New Zealand agreement. It is unfortunate to see that, while these two Pacific states are taking a move forward to participate in European crisis management, this comes at precisely the same time that the UK Government recently pulled out of leading the EU battlegroups.

Finally, with regard to New Zealand—a country, I remind the Committee, with an economy the size of that of Greece—it says:

“The EU is committed to taking European agricultural sensitivities fully into consideration in its negotiating strategy”.

We have many hill farmers in the uplands, who produce very good quality sheep. They will want to know that these sensitivities will be carried forward by the British Government post Brexit, because our upland farmers will see the much-vaunted freedoms as unfair competition, if we allow large increases in imports from countries with lower environmental and animal welfare standards.