Lord Purvis of Tweed
Main Page: Lord Purvis of Tweed (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Australia Free Trade Agreement
Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, with whom I used to sit on this committee. We sparred a little; he particularly did not like my suggestion that smoking in the committee should be banned, even when it was on Zoom. But never mind—I think other members of the committee will understand that.
I, like him, am broadly philosophically a free trader—not totally, but broadly philosophically one. I thought I would be the first person speaking in this debate to welcome the free trade agreement but the noble Lord, Lord Oates, welcomed it, albeit with quite a few reservations. I do welcome it, wholeheartedly. The report, which I have read is mostly—this is not meant to be condescending—extremely sensible and raised some very reasonable points.
I was on the committee at the beginning of the investigation. It was extremely well chaired by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, and I regret that he has felt the need to stand down from the House of Lords because of rather controversial issues about declarations. I thought he was a really good chairman and extraordinarily balanced. I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, is similarly balanced and a good chairman, but I have no experience of that.
I shall just explain why I left the committee, which is slightly illustrated by this debate. I left because I was too often the sole voice on the committee who wanted the trade agreements to work. I am afraid that too many on the committee wanted to see post-Brexit trade deals fail because they wanted Brexit to fail. I found this extremely sad because I am interested in the good of this country, not in party-political—or whatever—machinations.
This UK-Australia trade deal is far from perfect—we have heard about a lot of the defects in it—but please show me a free trade agreement that is perfect. When we were in the European Union, the EU agreements were extraordinarily torturous and slow, often reaching no conclusion at all, not least because they were trying to satisfy 26 or 27 members of the EU. They were looking after French farmers, for instance, which is more important in the EU than the benefits of a free trade agreement to consumers and society as a whole.
I am a farmer, as declared in the register of interests, and I know things can be very hard. However, interestingly—I would like my noble friend to confirm this when he sums up—I understand that the current quotas of beef and lamb imported into the UK from the antipodes are not nearly filled, so this free trade agreement will not make things worse. I have to say that some of the arguments being advanced have echoes of the corn law debates.
The common agricultural policy—of which we all have experience in one way or another—is very expensive, extremely disruptive to agricultural communities and, frankly, madness. Surely it is better to be out of that. I would love to hear somebody among those who will speak later defend the common agricultural policy. It has hugely harmed the agricultural sector in so many ways—I agree that perhaps it needed sprucing up, but, nevertheless, it really has.
Climate change has been much mentioned. I have been banging on about climate change and environmental issues since I got into the House of Commons, 30 years ago. When I first mentioned climate change, it was thought to be a rather eccentric obsession; it is not anymore. However, I have to say that the report is somewhat nitpicking on the issue of Australian coal. I agree with the sentiment, but those with nostalgia for our imperial past may not have realised that Australia is a sovereign country now, not one of our colonies, so it is up to Australia to decide what to do. Yes, we can lobby for it, but hold on, how many of us are not wearing something—in my case, it is my socks and shirt—that were not made in China?
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Viscount, as I frequently do in these debates. I enjoy his contributions, and the debates, and I will touch on his substantive point on the scrutiny period in a moment. Given his comment, combined with that of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, on these issues, discussing the quality of the horse’s breeding after it has bolted, I am willing—unless the Minister is able to be reassuring—to table a Motion to extend the scrutiny period beyond 20 July. I have done this before and will do so again, because we need to properly discuss these issues in both Houses.
I pay tribute to the committee for its work; I have done so before and I will continue to do so. Its reports are for debate in this House but they also inform it and the public, and they do a great constitutional service. My noble friend Lord Oates and I are literally Liberal free traders, and we therefore welcome the agreement, especially the parts on services, recognition of professional qualifications and the movement of people, which the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, mentioned. In supporting free, fair and open trade, many of our debates are more about non-tariff barriers than tariff barriers. This was particularly the case with Australia, as was mentioned, because its tariffs on UK exports were already low, and the regulatory elements of alignment are therefore very important.
There are questions about services support and facilitation, such as data transfer, where the committee highlighted that there is no data equivalence with Australia. This may cause difficulties for our combined services trade with those with whom we are seeking equivalence agreements. So I hope that the Minister will be able to say whether we expect to take forward in a meaningful way the discussions on data equivalence agreements with Australia to support the reassurance of consumers as well as trade facilitation.
I also enjoyed the debate because there were a couple of areas where there was not total unanimity. The noble Lord, Lord Robathan, was a case in point: I enjoyed his personal resignation statement—obviously, he felt left out—and I agree with him on China. I flippantly said that I do know where the cloth that I wear is from; I was an ambassador for the Scottish College of Textiles in my former constituency, and these are important issues.
The noble Lord raised a point with the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, on where we are geopolitically with our agreement with Australia, and with New Zealand, which we discussed. One of New Zealand’s oldest trade agreements is with China and, at the same time, the UK now has the biggest trade deficit of any country in our nation’s history: we have a trade deficit with China of over £40 billion in goods. This means that we need to debate this open-eyed. I smiled when the noble Lord seemed so envious of the French power to do harm to our farmers that he wanted to bring that back so that we could do harm to our own farmers—
Lord Robathan (Con)
As a farmer, I definitely do not want to do harm to farmers. But I have seen the harm done by the common agricultural policy, which I am sure the noble Lord thinks is marvellous.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
No, but we did not see output of beef and hill sheepmeat going down 5% and then 3% with any individual agreement, which is what we have seen with the Australia agreement. Perhaps those Brexit-supporting farmers now see the reality that the Government’s own impact assessment says that output will go down 5% and then 3% over 15 years in these sectors. Because I formerly represented a hill-farming constituency, I do not think that this is simply a case of doomsayers; these are genuine issues about the sustainability of our farming industry.
I pay tribute not only to the committee but to the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, who has resigned from the Government; I enjoyed being his Liberal shadow. I look forward to the seventh Trade Minister whom I will shadow in this place when she or he takes office. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that it is not her—it is me.
I agree with the overarching twin themes of the committee’s report: first, that this agreement was negotiated in the absence of a wider trade policy—in certain areas, it sits slightly alongside the Government’s export strategy, which I welcomed, but I have not yet seen too much read-across between the two—and, secondly, that the desire to move fast was to secure some boosterism and headlines between our Prime Minster and Australia’s, or, as the press reported at the time, between “BoJo and ScoMo”. We can reflect that neither is in office just months later, so we can question why there was such a rush.
When the noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, introduced the Queen’s Speech debate on trade, he wanted to reassure us that all parts of the UK would benefit from the 0.08% bounty over 15 years of this agreement—or, as the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, said, that there is something in it for everyone. However, when I raised the fact that this had been oversold, I was wafted aside. It appears that it was quite hard for the Government to dismiss the Regulatory Policy Committee, which is tasked with reviewing what the Government say in their impact assessments. It was interesting to note that the Government had to bring forward a second impact assessment after the Regulatory Policy Committee published its initial review. On page 5 of this review, the committee said:
“As originally submitted, the IA was not fit for purpose as the results in the IA were presented in a way that disproportionately emphasised the beneficial impacts with very limited discussion of the risks, disadvantageous impacts, and potential mitigations. In addition, the IA did not adequately describe a range of significant risks and uncertainties associated with the impacts and did not contextualise the estimates sufficiently. The IA suggested a greater degree of certainty and accuracy to the projections than was supported by the underlying evidence and modelling.”
In a way, that neatly sums up how this Government sell their trade policy. Presenting the higher case not “supported by … evidence” means that, when we scrutinise the agreements, they turn out not to be as promised—this seems to be the approach across the Government. I say “the Government”, but it seems as if we have more than one at the moment: there is Liz Truss, the free trade fighter, alongside Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who is breaking WTO rules to have protectionist steel tariffs. Some Ministers on the one hand claim that we are seeing developing standards in nature, biodiversity and animal welfare; I am sure that the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, will say in his speech that this is the case. Other Ministers, apparently in the same Government, are saying the opposite: for example, the Foreign Office Minister the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, said yesterday:
“Rishi Sunak has evidently agreed to make Mark Spencer the … DEFRA Sec of State. Mark was the biggest blocker of measures to protect nature, biodiversity, animal welfare. He will be our very own little Bolsonaro. Grim … for nature. But great news for political opponents”.
It would be helpful if the noble Viscount could outline which measures have been blocked by the Treasury because, if a serving Minister says it, we should know about it.
As the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and others have indicated, this is in the context of now seeing that the evidence has been very clear that our trade with the European Union has declined. This means that the concern raised by some of the witnesses to the committee—that some of the benefits of the Australia agreement might simply be those of displacement, rather than new and additional trade—is very relevant. That even means that the issue that consumers might seek cheaper prices will not necessarily be realised. It also means that the issues raised by some, including the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, will be relevant for our consideration: that we will not have a level playing field and we would prevent some of our agricultural industry from using certain materials and practices that would be permitted from shipped-in products from Australia—a point raised by the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose. This is not protectionism; it is realism.
One area which is striking—and especially astonishing given what Liz Truss and every Minister in the department had previously said—is that the UK failed to secure any protection for those goods that have geographical indicators, as the committee indicated. Why? We have heard time after time, during debates on the then Trade Bill and elsewhere, that GIs would be protected, but they are not. This is from Liz Truss, who made her name championing cheese in that famous speech, but has now raised the white cheesecloth on supporting products with geographical indications. We have now fully entered the Wonderland of Alice, because we will be able to protect those products which have geographical indications only should Australia sign an agreement with the European Union, because the European Union would provide the protection—I think the term is “give back control”.
This is a “landmark”, according to the Government’s statement and the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, but my understanding is that landmarks are so called because they are followed. However, from reading the committee’s report, I think it struggled to get clarity from the Government as to whether this will set some form of precedent for other areas. The Government will no doubt say—I have heard them say it previously—that each agreement is negotiated on its merits, et cetera. However, at the same time, we hear the Government saying that this is a gold-standard, “landmark” agreement. This, therefore, raises questions about the impact on diagonal cumulation for developing countries and uncertainty as to that policy; uncertainty to the policy on ISDS, because it was to be reviewed in Canada; and about the situation with Japan. The noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, was a supporter of ISDS; will any new Minister have the same approach?
On the question of standards, which I have raised previously, for genetically modified products or the use of pesticides, is it okay to bring in produce that has been reared using banned products? Will they be approved for our consumers simply because those banned products are at a low level? The Government should be clear about their intentions.
The final point which has been raised—a very relevant one—regards the remaining lack of clarity as to when there will be sufficiently strong guidance for those operating within Northern Ireland.
We support this agreement, but we are not blind to the realities that it will have a negative impact for certain sectors. We certainly think that involving Parliament with less of the boosterism and headline grabbing, and more of the serious work of proper consideration of what trade policy would look like in future, would result in stronger agreements which are less rushed and more sustainable. Ultimately, they will help the British economy, so that it would not be 0.08% but considerably more.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
I was four. Negotiating from scratch in itself should not have been an issue, but analysing in detail the Australian agreement raises very real concerns about what has been negotiated and what has not. Parliament has been virtually neutered in the whole process. The Australian agreement was signed in December 2021 and the New Zealand agreement in March 2022. We are now in July with just over one week before Parliament rises. Yes, it has been examined by the International Agreements Committee and the International Trade Committee in the other place but it will then be laid before Parliament similar to any other statutory instrument.
I wonder, as many other noble Lords have this afternoon, whether better parliamentary scrutiny would have led to a better, fairer, greener and more equitable agreement. There is a paradox at the heart of the Australian deal—the Government’s own impact assessment estimates that our farming, forestry and fishing sectors will take a £94 million hit and our semi-processed food industry a £225 million hit. Yet, again by the Government’s own predictions, overall trade will increase by less than 0.1% of GDP by 2035, while there is fear of real damage to some of the UK’s most important sectors.
As many other noble Lords have this afternoon, I worry that the prize of the deal, the prize of the headline, the prize of being first was more important to the Government than the detail of the agreement itself. As my colleague Nick Thomas-Symonds MP said in the Commons:
“Other countries, in future negotiations, will look at what was conceded to the Australian negotiators and take it as a starting point.”—[Official Report, Commons, 5/1/22; col. 67.]
UK exports to Australia as a result of this deal are supposed to rise by 53%, but I see no great basis for that optimism. Few trade deals have ever had that kind of impact, and certainly not those between two countries where there is already a good trading relationship with historically low tariffs. The 53% is also somewhat higher than the original estimate. Can the Minister explain this leap in optimism between the original estimate and the secondary estimates?
As we have heard from the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, the labour, environment and animal welfare chapters are pretty weak and do not necessarily focus on UK interests. Would the Minister care to elaborate on any specific improvements negotiated which will bring a positive benefit to our labour, environmental or animal welfare standards?
Minette Batters, the NFU president, said:
“The government needs to level with farmers about the commercial reality of this and ditch the soundbites that lost any meaning a long time ago.”
She continued:
“It needs to set out a detailed agri-food export strategy, with complementary policies that will enable UK farmers to compete and adjust.”
Those were some of her more measured words, but she is right.
As always, agreements include carve-outs. How confident is the Minister about the predicted rise in exports given the protections to Australia’s services market? This is in stark contrast to the lack of protection given to the UK food sector in the tariff schedules. Were any of our devolved nations involved in adding to our 12 pages of carve-outs? As I understand it, the Australian states were consulted and state protections included. Were any of the concerns of the UK’s devolved authorities recognised and incorporated into our carve-outs?
I fear that the Australian agricultural corporations will not be held to the same high standards as our farmers. Animal welfare standards have been mentioned a number of times, but what the Government have agreed is a non-regression clause. To be clear, that does not mean that the standards will be the same in both countries. What will actually happen is that meat produced to lower animal welfare standards will get tariff-free access to the UK market. So much for the promise that the Government had no intentions of striking a deal that did not benefit British farmers. Australia’s former negotiator said:
“I don’t think we have ever done as well as this.”
How much engagement did the National Farmers’ Union have after the agreement in principle was published? Was the NFU given the opportunity to raise concerns or make counterproposals? More importantly, was it able to assess the true impact of the FTA before it was finally signed?
The UK granted Australia generous agricultural market access. Why was this not leveraged to press Australia for more ambitious commitments on climate change? As we have heard, there is no reference to the temperature goals which were fundamental to the Paris Agreement, nor to reducing Australia’s reliance on coal, which was addressed in the free trade agreement with New Zealand. As my noble friends Lady Liddell and Lady Hayter have said, we now have a Labor Government in Australia so there is an opportunity to revisit it.
With the energy security Bill making its way through Parliament, this feels like a missed opportunity for the Government to show leadership on the world stage on an issue which is increasingly global, instead of taking an insular approach. Tariff-free access to our UK markets is a prize that Ministers should not give away easily. However, looking at the concessions made by this Government, are we not right to worry? This was a deal the UK Government “were advised” they had to do for the bigger prize of CPTPP accession. I would like to hear the Minister’s views on that.
I return to my opening point, and I cannot put it any better than the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, with regard to this Australian deal. We are allowed only to debate it; we can do nothing about it.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
The noble Viscount makes a good point, and I shall certainly take that back. I shall make one or two points about the new Australian Government in my remarks.
I should also like to address the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, about extending CRaG in this respect—again, I would like to row back on what he was saying. He asked whether we would extend; this of course is a decision not for me but for the Secretary of State for International Trade. However, we are confident that the arrangements that we have put in place for scrutiny are robust. The agreement has been under scrutiny for over six months now and benefited from three very valuable reports from parliamentary Select Committees, including the International Agreements Committee in this House.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
The Minister will know that the Liaison Committee in the House of Commons has written formally to request an extension of the scrutiny period. Have the Government responded to that, and what is their position with regard to the concern in the Commons that the Secretary of State has not met the committee to respond to the very questions that we have raised in this debate today?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I am not able to say whether we have responded, but I shall certainly get back to the noble Lord to find out exactly where we are on that process.
The IAC’s report acknowledged that the Government have upheld their commitments with regards to scrutiny of this agreement. However, I acknowledge the points that the committee made on scrutiny—first, that there is dialogue with committees prior to mandates being set for future agreements and, secondly, that we notify the IAC of all significant amendments to FTAs made after ratification. We are carefully considering the IAC’s report and will, of course, respond in due course. That, I hope, leads me to answer a question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Oates, on lessons learned. He made a very valuable point there.
I move on to the agreement itself. In response to the remarks made by my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister, he is right that this is not only the first FTA negotiated from scratch by the UK Government since leaving the European Union but the first trade deal to be signed by the UK as an independent free-trading nation in nearly half a century. Since the Secretary of State for the Department for International Trade put her signature to the deal in December, she has gone on to sign an FTA with New Zealand and a digital economy agreement with Singapore. This means that we have now secured trade deals with 71 countries, on top of the trade deal with the EU. Together, these countries accounted for £808 billion of UK bilateral trade in 2021. This is an immense success story.
This FTA was negotiated quickly and efficiently, despite the turmoil brought about by Covid. It shows the world what global Britain can do as a truly independent nation. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Oates, that we would not have been able to negotiate this agreement as a member of the European Union. Having left the EU, we are pursuing arguably the most ambitious programme of free trade agreements that this country has ever seen. As we speak, the Department for International Trade is conducting FTA negotiations with India and Canada. Negotiations have also been launched with Mexico and with the Gulf Cooperation Council, a customs bloc of six countries made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Negotiations will soon be under way with Israel too and the department has a packed programme of FTA negotiations coming down the track.
What we have achieved through this agreement, the UK-Australia FTA, is just the beginning. The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, described the deal more eloquently than I am able to just now, but this is a world-class deal between two like-minded nations, friends and allies, that will bind us together for years to come. Australia is already an important trading partner for the UK—last year, our trading relationship was worth £14.4 billion—but the ties between our two countries go far deeper than that. It is a relationship forged through a shared history and a common language, a relationship that has an unyielding belief in democracy, liberty and the rule of law.
I shall attempt to answer a point raised by my noble friend Lady McIntosh and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. I will not be able to answer it in full and I may need to write a letter, but whether we have a trade strategy is a very fair question. We do indeed have a trade strategy and we have communicated it publicly through several publications, such as the integrated review, the plan for growth and strategic cases for each trade partner we are about to enter negotiations with. I probably need to write a letter, but the headlines concern what type of trading nation we want to be, what our aims for UK trade policy are, how we will try to achieve these aims, the connections to the export strategy and the strategic case for FTAs. We believe it is all there but I think I need to put that in writing for the House.
I shall move on to the benefits—which were questioned, by the way, by my noble friend Lady McIntosh. We believe that the FTA we have agreed will ensure that future generations continue to benefit from this relationship in more ways than one. We will be able to work together like never before to tackle existential challenges, such as climate change, health pandemics and threats to global security. This deal will deliver benefits to people, businesses and communities in every corner of the UK, playing a key part in levelling up our country.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I do indeed and if my noble friend will allow me, I shall come to that. To continue my so-called peroration, the deal will increase trade with Australia by 53% and boost the economy by £2.3 billion. I take note of the rather negative view of the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, and I will explain what the extra benefits of this deal are. It will enable the 15,900 businesses that already export goods to Australia to sell their products in ever greater quantities, while opening the door for thousands of other businesses to start their exporting journey. This means exciting new opportunities for Scotland’s world-renowned whisky distillers, Wales’s fintech companies and Northern Ireland’s leading medical and pharmaceutical firms, as well as the north-east’s car manufacturers and aerospace companies in the West Midlands.
My noble friend Lord Udny-Lister asked about the reach of this agreement—another good question. I shall just mention SMEs, because this deal will benefit businesses of all shapes and sizes, not least the UK’s SMEs—the backbone of Britain—which comprise more than 99% of all private sector businesses, employing 16.3 million people and generating £2.3 trillion of income.
I come to investment. The deal will unlock further investment potential between our two countries too, with UK investors able to benefit from broader and deeper market access than Australia has ever guaranteed in a previous trade agreement. This will allow us to build on the £37 billion already invested in Australia’s economy in 2020. Of course, there will also be benefits for UK consumers, who will be able to enjoy more of their favourite Australian products, such as Jacob’s Creek and Hardy’s wines or Tim Tam biscuits.
The subject of services was raised, not least by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. I was pleased to read the comments of the IAC in its report, welcoming the provisions that have been secured. The services sector, as we know, is of huge importance to the UK, and we believe we have negotiated a deal that plays to these strengths. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, that Australia has gone further than ever before in granting access to its market in several areas, with unprecedented levels of regulatory transparency. UK services from architecture and law to financial services and shipping will be able to compete in Australia on a guaranteed equal footing. This could increase exports of UK services to Australia, which were worth £5.3 billion in 2021.
The “Professional Services and Recognition of Professional Qualifications” chapter will support work towards mutual recognition of professional qualifications. This could lead to professionals such as lawyers, engineers and accountants no longer having to requalify to practice in one another’s countries. On mobility, the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, is right; this is a good part of the agreement, whereby there is a way in which our people can have good movement between one another’s countries. For the first time, UK service suppliers, including architects, scientists, researchers, lawyers and accountants, will have access to visas to work in Australia without being subject to its changing skilled occupation list.
I also acknowledge the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, about innovation. This agreement contains the world’s first dedicated innovation chapter, underlining the important role that innovation will play in the future. We want to take full advantage of this, particularly in terms of technological developments.
On agriculture, which I definitely want to come on to, the committee noted the concerns of the farming community, specifically that the agreement may lead to potential surges in agricultural imports to the UK. I want to provide some reassurance. We have secured a range of measures to safeguard our farmers, including tariff rate quotas for a number of sensitive agricultural products; product-specific safeguards for beef and sheepmeat, which were raised today in the debate; and a general bilateral safeguard mechanism providing a temporary safety net for all products. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, said, we should remember that Australia’s focus is on exporting to lucrative markets in the Asia-Pacific region, and it is relatively unlikely that beef and sheep would be diverted to the UK from Asian markets in very large volumes, although I note the slightly pessimistic view of the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell.
Finally, answering the points made by my noble friend Lord Robathan, our estimates suggest a reduction in gross output of around 3% for beef and 5% for sheepmeat as a result of liberalisation, relative to the baseline. These estimated impacts would be felt gradually over the staging period. It is likely that the increase in imports will primarily displace beef imports from the EU and sheepmeat imports from New Zealand. Further testing suggests that, given the strong consumer preference for UK meat, gross output could fall by as little as 1% in beef and 2% in sheep.
The environment was raised by the noble Lords, Lord Oates and Lord Kerr, and the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell. I note the disappointment expressed but, to come back to noble Lords on this, we have secured the most substantive climate provisions that Australia has ever committed to in an FTA. The deal also recognises our right to regulate to reach net zero and affirms our mutual international environment and climate commitments, including the Paris agreement. There is a lot more I could say about that, but I want to move on and finish—
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
Before the Minister sits down, he has not responded to my question about geographical indicators. There is no protection for Scotch beef or lamb, Welsh lamb, Stilton cheese, Cornish pasties, clotted cream—there is a very long list. There is a side letter to the agreement from Dan Tehan, the Minister, which states categorically that there is no legal protection for any of these protected products. Why?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
Okay, so that is a series of questions. I am going to agree to write to the noble Lord on that point because time is running out and I want to cover a number of other issues.
When it comes to animal welfare standards, I particularly want to address remarks made by the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, and the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, because I want to quote from the agreement:
“Each Party shall endeavour to ensure that its laws, regulations and policies provide for and encourage high levels of animal welfare protection and shall endeavour to continue to improve their respective levels of animal welfare protection, including through their laws”.
Therefore, I hope that we have given reassurances on animal protection, in not just this debate but others.
On ISDS, in response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, I note the committee’s recommendation that we clarify our position on ISDS and I am happy to confirm that in light of our investment relationship, the UK and Australia decided it was not necessary to include ISDS in this new agreement. What we did do is negotiate a dedicated state-to-state dispute settlement chapter; this is the central pillar of our agreement that will provide an effective method for enforcing commitments made in the deal.
Very quickly on CPTPP, there is a lot I could say about that, but I do believe that this is a historic deal, a very important deal, and will lead into this, as the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, has also said. I think I should conclude on that; I feel that there is a letter that the House is due from quite a few questions that have not been answered. I think I should finish, if I may do this, so—