Trade Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Matt Western and Judith Cummins

Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 30th January 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Judith Cummins]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.

[Matt Western]

I thank my hon. Friend for being so generous. To amplify that point, I think it was Nick Dearden who, during the oral evidence sessions, spoke about modern trade deals and the huge opportunity presented to us. It is almost a no-brainer to include the things listed in the amendment. There is almost an assumption that they should be included, and that is why we are putting forward the amendment. These are modern trade deals. We have an opportunity to update the arrangements. This is a simple amendment.

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[Judith Cummins]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. It is important that we consider those wider issues in this Committee.

It is unacceptable that we might come to such a debate in the future only to discover that our right to choose what we eat and how it is produced has already been traded away in secret negotiations by a Secretary of State who ranks getting a trade deal far above protecting food safety for the British people. Amendment 8 would simply ensure that our trade agreements conform to food safety policies, not the other way around.

The significance of the challenge laid down by Wilbur Ross at the CBI last November was lost on no one. Two days after the speech, the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, responded to Wilbur Ross and posed the No. 1 question for the UK: do the British people wish to remain aligned with the European Union’s relatively high standards, or do we want our food safety standards to be downgraded so we can do a dirty deal with the USA?

[Matt Western]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, given the Secretary of State’s statement that there

“are no health reasons why you couldn’t eat chickens that have been washed in chlorinated water”—

of course, that is the same Secretary of State who said that Brexit is the easiest thing in human history—it is crucial that we set out in statute that international trade agreements must maintain the food safety standards in our country?

[Judith Cummins]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that that must be set out in regulations and in statute.

I want to spell out clearly the connection between this amendment and one of the key issues in the post-Brexit settlement between the UK and the EU—namely, the border issue on the island of Ireland. Hon. Members will recall the dramatic scenes last month when our Prime Minister finally managed to move us on to negotiations with the EU about what our long-term relationship should be after Brexit. That was achieved by way of an agreement in respect of the island of Ireland, which committed the UK to the following:

“In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement.”

When pressed further on what exactly that might mean, the Prime Minister was more explicit. She specified that there are six areas that are covered at present by north-south co-operation on the island of Ireland, and confirmed that one of them is agriculture.

The significance of the Prime Minister’s words goes far beyond the immediate issue of how we are to relate to the remaining 27 member states of the European Union in the future. Any suggestion that the UK might downgrade its food safety regulations to do a deal with the USA or any other trading partner would wreak havoc among farming communities both north and south of the border in Ireland, which would find themselves unable to continue trading freely. Allowing the Secretary of State to contemplate such a divergence in a trade deal with the USA or any other trading partner would jeopardise the peaceful co-existence that we have all endeavoured to hold together since the Good Friday agreement was signed 20 years ago. That is why amendment 8 is so important, and we hope the Government will vote to support it.

There are real threats. The USA agricultural lobby called for EU rules on pesticides to be downgraded in TTIP, given that we have far stricter regulations on the levels of chemical pesticide residue permitted in food. It called for our ban on the sale of genetically modified organisms to be eliminated, given that 70% of all processed food in US supermarkets is now made with genetically modified ingredients. It also called for an end to the mandatory labelling of products containing genetically modified ingredients, on the grounds that it represents a hidden barrier to trade. Consumer choice would go out of the window with public health, food safety and animal welfare rights.

[Matt Western]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is clearly an issue, as has been described, of consumer information and consumer rights, in terms of not just the quality of food being put on our plates but the conditions in which our animals are kept, the state of the abattoirs and the standards we maintain so highly in this country?

[Judith Cummins]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I repeat that it is important to maintain the regulatory standards we have in this nation.

The US Government trade representative confirmed in writing at the very outset of the negotiations that the USA’s TTIP negotiators would be seeking to eliminate or downgrade those sanitary or phytosanitary measures that prevent US exports from entry into the market of the UK and other EU member states. That was one of the central reasons why TTIP became so toxic across country after country in Europe, and why the European Commission soon discovered that it had no legitimacy to continue the TTIP negotiations at all.

I should also note that there is a commercial aspect to this. The celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver, was so concerned about the potential impact of TTIP on his business—which is based on high-quality food imports at every stage of the supply chain—that he took it upon himself to call on the previous Secretary of State for cast-iron guarantees that food standards would not be included as part of the TTIP negotiations. The Secretary of State was unable to give him those guarantees, since the TTIP negotiations were, at that same moment, addressing sanitary and phytosanitary measures at the express demand of the US Government. Of course, those negotiations were going on behind closed doors.

That is what Wilbur Ross meant when he warned that the USA would demand the downgrading of UK food standards. That is why it has been so appalling to see the current Secretary of State laughing off the threat represented by such a downgrading of our standards.

Trade Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Matt Western and Judith Cummins

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Judith Cummins]

Q Unfortunately, my original question was to Mr Stace, but I will ask it to Mr Stevenson. Clause 6 of the Bill suggests that the TRA’s remit will extend to more than just trade remedies and to the analysis of trade disputes. Does that raise any concerns?

Cliff Stevenson: In principle, I think it is not necessarily a bad idea—that if you have an organisation full of trade expertise, you might use it for other purposes as well. I mentioned Canada earlier. The Canadian international trade tribunal, the independent entity that makes determinations on injury, can also be given other tasks and produce expert reports. So I do not think it is a bad idea in principle that the TRA may do other things. The concern would be about resourcing.

Trade remedy investigations are highly resource-intensive. They are incredibly detailed. Gareth mentioned earlier about the dumping calculation being easy. In a sense, what he was saying is that it is straightforward, the steps are very clear—but it is a massive calculation with thousands of data entries on a spreadsheet or in a model. To the extent that there would be a concern, it would be to ensure that there was sufficient capacity ring-fenced for the different functions. Principally, it seems to me that the Trade Remedies Authority’s purpose is the administration of the trade remedy regime. That would be the only issue I would raise.

[Matt Western]

Q We heard from Mr Stace a moment ago about an effective trade remedies system. In that one example, an effective system does not necessarily lead to higher consumer prices or significantly higher prices. Do you have other examples you can give, Mr Reynolds?

Tom Reynolds: One example I can give you is from MTRA partner sectors, the chemicals fertiliser sector, around the long-term implications for the consumer if adequate trade remedies are not installed. In Ireland, for instance, the domestic manufacturing industry for fertilisers sadly went by the wayside, because the anti-dumping measures were not introduced in time to provide a defence for their industry. As it became a less attractive market because of less competition, the prices started to rise for all the previously dumped exports, so the lack of competitive environment in Ireland ended up costing farmers more for their fertilisers.

Cliff Stevenson: Obviously, it depends on the product, because when you are talking about products used in another industry, such as in the case of steel, even a fairly substantial anti-dumping duty, if you work it through to the final price to the retailer of the downstream product, is going to have a much smaller effect. Obviously, in the case of a consumer product, where the product goes directly to the consumer, the impact of the duty would be exactly at the level of the duty, so that is certainly true.

It is important always to consider what the purpose of trade remedies is. They are about remedying a distortion, an anti-competitive situation or a subsidy. In that way, any time you increase a duty the users, the importers, or the consumers of that product are going to face the negative impact of the increase in duty. What is really important to remember about trade remedies is that they are not about protecting domestic industry, I do not believe. They are about restoring effective competition. That is a key point. Even if a consumer product does increase in price, in the long term the consumer is better off if effective competition is maintained.