Trade: Standards

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been a very good debate, and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, on getting her name on the Order Paper early so that we have a good chance, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said, to rehearse some of the ground covered in our previous debate on the trade Bill and that is surely to come on the many Bills now stacking up on the post-Brexit situation.

The noble Baroness made a powerful case for a trade commission. It needs more fleshing out around where its powers would start and end, and what position it would occupy, but there is certainly a germ of a good idea there which is worthy of further consideration. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

I am sure that the Government will argue, as did the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, that the Strategic Trade Advisory Group takes over that space. That may well be the case, but its advisory nature and lack of engagement with Parliament—points made by other speakers—and our need to ensure a mandate and to have a dialogue with the Government on the progress of trade deals, means that STAG cannot of itself tackle the key questions of maintaining and improving standards in what we make and produce, and supporting UK producers.

Quotes from the NFU president attacking the Government over their current approach to upcoming trade deals on agriculture have already been mentioned. He said:

“To sign up to a trade deal which”


opens our

“fridges to food which would be illegal to produce here would … be morally bankrupt”.

We get a sense from that that something is going on, at an important level, around how the Government relate to this question.

The key question from this debate is why the trade Bill amendment asked for by this House and passed with all-party support, as referred to by the noble Baroness, is not taking this trick. The issue is very clear: the question of how you define in law our current standards is one that we addressed in detail in discussions leading up to the amendment being laid. The wording seems to cover

“human, animal or plant life or health; animal welfare; environmental protection; and employment and labour”,

and does so in a way that ties it to the current statutory position—or the statutory position that would apply when any future changes are made. The parliamentary draftsmen have crawled over it and do not seem to have found any fault with it. It was agreed unanimously by this House. It has yet to be looked at by the Commons, but I hope that it will still be in play when the trade Bill is published shortly.

The Government will probably claim that they have said enough on the record in Parliament to avoid any concerns about their bona fides in relation to standards. Indeed, if you read the response given on 5 February by the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, you might be convinced. He said:

“We will stand firm in trade negotiations to ensure that any future trade deals uphold the standards that farmers and consumers across the UK expect.”—[Official Report, 5/2/20; col. 1793.]


The trouble is that saying it is not putting it into statute, a point that has already been made. The Government seem hell-bent on avoiding the large number of legislative opportunities that they have—the Environment Bill, the Agriculture Bill, the Fisheries Bill and the trade Bill, which is soon to be reintroduced. Why are they not getting out of the impasse by saying, “We’re going to do it. Relax. It’s all in hand. We have the wording, we have the opportunity and we will have the support of the House and the country to do this”?

I suspect that the answer is that modern trade deals, as I think the Government are now beginning to realise, are much more complicated than simply analysing what trade is to take place in goods and products at what tariff levels. You have to consider the wider regulatory structure, as my noble friend Lord Whitty said, as that underpins quality and safety. You also have to engage with services, which are our main trading operation, and the wider public policy and political issues that that raises.

My concern is that this rather shabby approach to a key question—the constant repetition of a mantra that does not get turned into legislation that will work —is code for the fact that the Government have realised that they have to keep open the options that they need for effectively negotiating a US trade deal and an EU trade deal. But they cannot have it both ways. Surely the danger they face is that, in pursuit of these deals, they will start to trade off our high standards and the quality of our goods and services, make difficulties for our producers, and risk our financial services and the other trades that sustain our economy. I hope that the Government have this in mind.