Agricultural Exports from Australia: Tariffs Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for International Trade
Kenny MacAskill
Main Page: Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)Department Debates - View all Kenny MacAskill's debates with the Department for International Trade
Agricultural Exports from Australia: Tariffs
Kenny MacAskill Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Greg Hands
My hon. Friend is right: 10,000 cars go from Sunderland alone each year to Australia. That is a big volume of cars and a big amount of receipts as well. Cars make up just under 8% of all UK exports to Australia. They currently attract a 5% tariff. We are looking to reduce or remove that tariff in the agreement, and I look forward to making progress precisely on that issue to bring joy to his constituents soon.
Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)
Over 200 years ago during the highland clearances, people were shamefully replaced by sheep, for landlords’ profits. Now this trade deal threatens the supplanting of those sheep by cheap imports, for Tory dogma. What does it say about the Tory Government that they do not even care about Scottish sheep, let alone Scottish crofters and farmers?
Greg Hands
Well, let me say a few things about that. We have to understand the existing trade flows in beef and lamb from Australia. We have to understand the beef prices. Production costs in some of those Asian markets are twice those in the UK, which makes it very competitive for Australia to sell into markets such as Japan and Korea, where the domestic production price of beef, for example, is twice that in the UK. The Australian lamb quota for the UK is not even fully used at the moment.