Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to open this Second Reading debate on behalf of the Opposition—in what is evidently the biggest political event of the day.

I welcome the fact that we are finally here for a longer debate on trade, albeit after the ratification of the two deals we are discussing, and let me say at the outset that the Labour party is in favour of securing trade deals with countries around the world that deliver for communities up and down the country. We are in favour, too, of deepening our trade links with our friends in Australia and New Zealand, and I want to put on record my thanks to the high commissions of Australia and New Zealand for their openness to dialogue and to providing information throughout the process.

The trade deals are of course significant in themselves, but they are also crucial because they set precedents not only for what other countries can expect when negotiating with us but for the process of scrutiny provided by this House, and, frankly, that process has been wholly inadequate. Ministers have hidden away rather than answer to this House for what they have negotiated. Ten months after the Australia deal was signed and seven months after the New Zealand deal was signed, the Bill in front of us today is only a short Bill that gives the Government the power to implement the procurement chapters in the Australia and New Zealand deals along with the associated provisions about regulations and the devolved authorities. So today’s debate is not about ratification, as the Government have avoided that.

In respect of the New Zealand trade deal, no Minister from the Department even came to the House to speak about it and open themselves up to questions; instead, they just issued a written statement, so no questions could be put. The cross-party International Trade Committee has rightly been scathing about the way the Government have handled scrutiny of the Australia trade deal and their premature triggering of the 21-day Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 process without full Select Committee consideration being available to Members. When pressed on that, the Government then refused to extend the process. The current Secretary of State has by my count swerved eight—eight—invitations to attend the International Trade Committee.

The Government’s failure to be open to parliamentary scrutiny and make parliamentary time available for debate is both a completely unacceptable way to treat this House and a clear breach of the Government’s own promises.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for mentioning the International Trade Committee, which I chair, and he highlights our frustration. Committee members have different political views, but they were united about the Government’s disappointing attitude to scrutiny. If we get these things right, more people win, but if we are slipshod and slapdash, more people lose.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I completely support what the Chair of the Select Committee says. It is a cross-party Committee, so this is not a partisan point. Whatever has been negotiated by Ministers, they should be willing to open themselves up to scrutiny from this House.

As I said, this is also a breach of the Government’s own promise. Lord Grimstone wrote in May 2020:

“The Government does not envisage a new FTA proceeding to ratification without a debate first having taken place on it.”

But that is precisely what has happened, and I think we are entitled to ask why.

Why are the Government so worried about being held to account on their own trade policy? Could it be because the 2019 Conservative manifesto promised that 80% of UK trade will be covered by free trade agreements by the end of this year when the reality is far short of that mark? Could it be because that same manifesto promised a comprehensive trade deal with the United States by the end of this year and it is nowhere in sight?

Or is it because Ministers have been letting down farmers? Members need not just take my word for that; the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), the former Chancellor—and, as of yesterday at least, a Tory Leadership candidate—made exactly the same point over the summer. No wonder the now Prime Minister failed to attend a hustings with the National Farmers Union last month; as the former Chancellor put it, that

“raises questions about her willingness to listen to the needs of farmers and the wider food industry.”

I agree entirely with the former Chancellor; I could not have put it better myself.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his book, which was a page-turner. Will he not take comfort, as I do, from what was said by the Prime Minister a few days ago to the National Farmers Union about wanting to see an improved scrutiny process?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I thank the hon. Member for his congratulations on my biography of Harold Wilson; that is greatly appreciated. On scrutiny, if only the Prime Minister had held the trade brief in the past and been able to do something about it then.

Is not the truth perhaps that the Government are running away from scrutiny because they are failing to support exporters properly? The Opposition have been arguing that the Government are not doing enough to support exporters, and over the summer that became clear. The former Minister for exports, the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer)—he intervened on the Secretary of State but is no longer in his place—appears to agree. He argued that the trade access programme is underfunded and said of it:

“We support too few shows, we don’t send enough business, our pavilions are often decent but overshadowed by bigger and better ones from our competitors.”

Perhaps it is therefore no surprise that there has been failure in the Department for International Trade.

We then have what the Secretary of State said about her own Minister for Trade Policy, who I think is still the Minister for Trade Policy today. She said:

“There have been a number of times when she hasn’t been available, which would have been useful, and other Ministers have picked up the pieces.”

The former Chancellor says that Conservative trade policy is letting down farmers, the former Minister for Exports says that the Government are not supporting exporters as they should be, and the Secretary of State is criticising the performance of one of her own Ministers. This is not the good ship Britannia delivering trade for global Britain; it is more like “Pirates of the Caribbean”, with a ghost ship manned by a zombie Government beset by infighting, mutiny and dishonesty. The calamity might have been mildly amusing were it not so serious a matter for our country’s future, with people across our nation needing a trade policy that delivers for them.

In other negotiations and future negotiations, countries will look at what was conceded in these negotiations and take that as a starting point. We already have a UK-Japan trade deal that benefits Japanese exporters five times as much as UK exporters. On the Australia deal, the Government’s impact assessment shows a £94 million hit to our farming, forestry and fishing sectors and a £225 million hit to our semi-processed food industry. On the New Zealand deal, the Government’s impact assessment states that

“part of the gains results from a reallocation of resources away from agriculture, forestry, and fishing”,

which will take a £48 million hit, “and semi-processed foods”, a £97 million hit.

The Opposition will press four issues in Committee: farming and animal welfare; climate change; labour standards and workers’ rights; and, as has been raised in interventions, the role of the devolved Administrations in the process of negotiation and ratification, and the protection of geographical indicators. Let me deal first with farming and animal welfare. Labour is proud of our farmers and the high standards that they uphold, and we are confident in British produce to be popular in new markets, but we also recognise the need for a level playing field for our farmers.

The Government claim that they are trying to mitigate the impact of the two deals with tariff-free access being phased in. In the New Zealand deal, there are tariff rate quotas and product-specific safeguards that last 15 years. Similarly, in the Australia deal, the phasing-in period on beef and sheepmeat is 15 years, but the quotas set by the Government for imports from Australia are far higher than current imports. As I have previously pointed out in the House, on beef imports, when Japan negotiated a trade deal with Australia, it limited the tariff-free increase in the first year to 10% on the previous year. South Korea achieved something similar in negotiations and limited the increase to 7%. But the Government have negotiated a first year tariff-free allowance with a 6,000% increase on the amount of beef that the UK currently imports from Australia. On sheepmeat, they have conceded a 67% increase in the first year of the deal.

It is not as if other countries have not done significantly better—they have—so why did our trade Ministers not achieve the same as Japan’s and South Korea’s? Why have our Ministers failed to ensure that Australian agricultural corporations are not held to the same high standards as our farmers?

The Government have agreed to a non-regression clause on animal welfare. To be clear, that does not mean equality of standards across the two countries—it is not fair competition. What will actually happen is that meat produced to far lower animal welfare standards will get tariff-free access to the UK market.

[John Spellar]

Has it not been a long-standing problem—even within the EU—that different animal welfare standards have allowed our farmers to be undercut? On beef, might it not be farmers in the Irish Republic who face greater competition? After all, why would people want to send meat to the UK all the way from Australia rather than get it from just down the road? Should we not be looking at supporting our industry domestically, particularly through public sector procurement?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My right hon. Friend is right to raise what we should do domestically. He also illustrates another point. There is a history of trade negotiations, including on different standards of animal welfare, that Ministers could have taken heed of, sought to learn lessons from and put into these negotiations.

The now Prime Minister said that the Government had no intention of striking any deals that did not benefit our farmers, but the reality is that the vast majority of trade deals, which she trumpeted in her leadership campaign, were roll-over deals replicating existing EU agreements—not so much an exercise in driving a hard bargain as a national exercise in cut-and-paste with accompanying photographs on Instagram.

Perhaps it is no surprise that the Prime Minister’s own colleagues have been so critical of her approach to trade. The right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that he faced “challenges” in trying to get her to enshrine animal welfare in deals. No wonder the NFU said that it saw

“almost nothing in the deal that will prevent an increase in imports of food produced well below the production standards required of UK farmers”.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Is the right hon. Member aware of the article run by Politico in July indicating that the new Prime Minister was warned by her officials that the trade deals that she was negotiating with Australia and New Zealand would negatively impact on UK farmers?

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am grateful for that intervention. Yes, it seems that the Prime Minister ploughed on regardless, despite the clear advice that she was given.

The concerns that we are discussing must be taken seriously. We need to hear so much more from the Government about how they will support our farmers—that includes smallholding farmers, as were mentioned in an intervention by the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins)—about the robustness of animal welfare protections and about how we can prevent our farmers from being sold short for doing the right thing and upholding high standards. Ministers also need to be clear about what support farmers can rely on in the next 15 years so that they can navigate the transitional period. Those matters will be pressed by the Opposition in Committee.

Given the Government’s poor record in standing up for UK interests in negotiations, perhaps it is no surprise that Australia’s former negotiator at the World Trade Organisation said:

“I don’t think we have ever done as well as this”.

Is it any wonder that the National Farmers Union said, of the Australia agreement,

“there is little in this deal to benefit British farmers”?

As we consider the impact on our agricultural sector, why are the Government promising a monitoring report about two years after the agreement comes into effect and every two years thereafter? Why not every year? They could do that, particularly given the level of concern in our rural communities.

I turn to climate change. I realise that the Conservative party has a long-standing reliance on conservative allies from Australia, not least with the appointment of Tony Abbott to the trade board, but surely it has not signed up to some of the more extreme views that he and his colleagues hold on climate change, including that it is “probably doing good”. The current COP26 President, the right hon. Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma)—

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

Hear, hear.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

On 1 December 2021, in this House, the right hon. Gentleman said that the Australian deal would reaffirm

“both parties’ commitments to upholding our obligations under the Paris agreement, including limiting global warming to 1.5°.”—[Official Report, 1 December 2021; Vol. 704, c. 903.]

Frankly, I would have cheered as the hon. Lady did if, a few weeks later, the deal had actually contained what the right hon. Gentleman said it would. However, the explicit commitment to limit global warming to 1.5° was not in the deal, despite what had been said. What went wrong in the final couple of weeks of the negotiation? Did Ministers simply give in for the sake of getting a completed deal? It is a lesson that tariff-free access to our UK market should not be given away easily. Looking at the concessions made by the Government in those final weeks, are people not right to worry that the Government are more interested in the press release announcing the completed deal than they are in standing up for UK jobs and livelihoods? It surely cannot be right that, as across the world we debate the devastating impact of climate change, we are not capturing that fully in deals like this. Not only is it dangerous to the planet, but it fails to recognise the huge business and export potential that climate change technology, innovation and services can create. It is not only environmentally unsound, but it also makes bad business sense. I implore Ministers to speak again with the new Administration in Australia to see what more can be done to take joint action on climate change, and to put it at the front and centre of the very well established and historic relationship between the two countries. I am sure that the recent change in Government in Australia will be beneficial in enabling that to happen.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

In addition to climate change and the other areas that my right hon. Friend raises, the British Medical Association and the royal colleges are still very concerned about the impact on our NHS of the new trade deals being negotiated, with profit rather than patients being the prime focus. Is he reassured by the passage of the Bill?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely clear that our NHS should never be on the table in any trade negotiation, but that is one of a number of significant issues that could have been properly raised and ventilated had there been a proper process of scrutiny.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that the Bill, not just the trade treaty, allows, through the negative procedure, Ministers to change procurement rules? We can say here that the NHS is not for sale and not on the table, and Ministers can say that, but this House does not have a cast-iron guarantee that we would have a vote before any change in procurement rules. An amendment to the Bill to allow that to be done through the positive procedure would be one commitment the Government could give to ensure Parliament gets a cast-iron guarantee.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If the Government do not give that commitment, we will bring forward an amendment in Committee to seek that commitment.

[John Spellar]

Can we slay this particular red herring, which was also mentioned in relation to the US trade deal? It is not about privatising the NHS. All the Americans said, and in this they were right, was, “We are not saying what you should do with the health service; we are saying that if you decide to privatise it”—which we should not do—“then we want to be treated as equal partners.” That has nothing to do with trade; it is to do with the Government’s health policy. We should not mix up the two, following a political campaign on it.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

It is not the threat of the American Government to our NHS that worries me; it is the threat of the Tory Government to the NHS. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that distinction.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I will give way once more and then I will have to make some progress.

[Matt Rodda]

I very much appreciate my right hon. Friend giving way; he has been very generous with his time. He mentions the threat of the Government to British agriculture—he is absolutely right on that—and the threat to the environment in some of the measures. Does he agree that there could also be risks for many small exporting businesses who face a series of hurdles to get over because of the Government’s trade policy?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the position of small businesses. Support for small businesses, particularly exporters, is something on which the Government really have to do far better.

[Katherine Fletcher]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I will take one more intervention and then I will have to make some progress.

[Katherine Fletcher]

I am very grateful. I speak because I am genuinely passionate. I do not know how many Members have actually exported to Australia as a small businessperson, but I have. The trade agreement makes it easier and better. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I sincerely hope it does; absolutely. I am glad I took the intervention, because of the hon. Lady’s experience of exporting. I am sure she agrees with me that businesses have different amounts of resources to spend on supporting their exports and getting information about markets around the world, and that the Government should stand by all those exporters and make that process as easy as possible. The trade deal is, of course, a step forward, but we also must support our businesses in taking advantage of the opportunities she is speaking about.

Returning to climate change, we really must use future trade deals to drive forward this agenda and recognise the mutual benefit of tackling the biggest challenge of our generation.

On the third issue, labour standards and workers’ rights, Ministers need to go further, especially given some of the rhetoric briefed to the newspapers about bonfires of workers’ rights, and ensure that the Bill will not undermine workers’ rights, particularly in relation to Australia. The TUC said, in relation to the Australia deal, that the agreement

“does not contain commitments to ILO core conventions and an obligation for both parties to ratify and respect those agreements”,

and that it provides

“a much weaker commitment to just the ILO declaration”.

That is a profound error. We should not be setting off on the road of establishing new trade agreements across the globe that sell short our workers here, or indeed elsewhere. A race to the bottom benefits no one. Put simply, it is self-defeating to think that Britain would prosper via deals in which labour standards are a trade-off. We should be promoting the highest standards here and around the world, in the interests of our workers here and as a force for good around the world. It is what a Labour Government would do, working with all trading partners, including Australia and New Zealand, to drive up protection for workers and to have a trade policy that truly delivers for working people.

On the devolved Administrations, an issue raised on a number of occasions, the Government have spoken about trade benefiting all parts of the United Kingdom. Central to that, however, is taking into account the strengths of different nations and regions, and listening to their democratically elected representatives. That needs to be done in overall trade policy, in the negotiating mandate and negotiation process, and in ratification. That could be—I say this to the Secretary of State—formalised in a concordat or agreement on how the Government interact with the devolved Administrations. I urge the Secretary of State to look at that. We are also calling for the UK Government to undertake nation-specific impact assessments on trade deals. That would ensure a clear understanding of the implications and opportunities for the whole country, and also ensure that the deals can best align with the economic strategies of the devolved Administrations.

There is also—if I may just mention it for a moment—an issue around geographical indicators. As the International Trade Committee put it, the

“Government has failed to secure any substantive concessions on the protection of UK Geographical Indications in Australia.”

We should be backing our fantastic national producers, from Stilton cheese to Anglesey sea salt and Scotch whisky, and not failing to achieve concessions in this way.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Stornoway black pudding.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Indeed.

I will not hold the Government to impossible standards and of course there are aspects of the deals that I welcome. In particular, the provisions to advance women’s economic empowerment across the New Zealand agreement are to be welcomed. Chapter 25 enables collaborative work between the UK and New Zealand to support women business owners, entrepreneurs and workers to access opportunities for international trade, complementing other areas, such as small and medium-sized enterprises—mentioned in an intervention—services, procurement, labour, development and digital trade. I was pleased to meet the Prime Minister of New Zealand on her recent visit, and I know that the New Zealand Government share ambitious climate goals and the need to uphold workers’ rights. However, after looking at the two deals and the differences between them, I observe that they seem to be more a consequence of the political persuasion of the Governments with whom Ministers here were negotiating, rather than a deliberate strategy on the part of Ministers.

On procurement, the Government will need to show how businesses here can bid in Australia and New Zealand. In particular, support needs to be given to facilitate the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises in the procurement process and to promote the use of paperless procurement. Suppliers must have easy access to information about procurement opportunities. Words and promises on that are not enough; it has to be made a reality.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Is my right hon. Friend concerned about the fact that we should allow British authorities to put conditions on procurement that pertain to labour rights, trade union rights, local recognition and the employment of workforces at a rate that is higher than the national minimum wage? It is important that the Government do not provide foreign companies with easier access to bid for British contracts than that which British companies would have.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend makes two very good points: first, we should ensure that our British firms have the support that they need to compete in the procurement process; and secondly, this should not be some sort of cloak beneath which there is a race to the bottom on workers’ rights. Both those things are important.

The concerns that have been raised about these two deals and the process of scrutiny amount to a problem with the Government’s approach to trade policy. There is no core trade policy and no clear strategy or direction. That criticism has been echoed by the International Trade Committee.

There has been a lot of talk from the Conservative party, but the delivery on trade agreements has been noticeable by its absence. There is no US trade deal in sight, and we await the India deal—as promised by the now previous Prime Minister—and the meeting of the target of 80% of UK trade being covered by FTAs.

[Anthony Mangnall]

Does the right hon. Member recognise that we have started negotiations on the CPTPP and with the Gulf Co-operation Council, and that we have started negotiations and to look into the Canada agreement? It is not technically that fair to say that we are not ploughing ahead with signing as many trade deals as we can.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I am holding the Conservative Members to the standard that they promised in their manifesto. It is not the standard that I have set, but the standard that they set when they went to the electorate in 2019.

Is not the problem that, for too long, Britain has been led by a directionless and, frankly, distracted Conservative party? Conservative Members spent months propping up a discredited Prime Minister. They decided to leave him in office over the summer while they fought among themselves, leaving people up and down the country facing economic devastation.

A dynamic trade policy that aligns with a clear industrial strategy is vital to boosting our appalling levels of growth and averting recession, yet we find that the Australia deal does not even mention the specific target on climate change, despite that being one of the great challenges of our generation.

As an Opposition, we will of course not vote down this short Bill. However, if we were to attempt to change the deals that have already been agreed, or if anyone went back on their word on them, that would further sully our international reputation, which, frankly, has already been badly damaged by the conduct of the Conservative party. However, we will push a number of amendments in Committee to support our farmers and to ensure that exporters have the support they need. The Government must urgently learn lessons from where things have gone wrong in these negotiations.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

An additional amendment that might be useful would be to change the requirement for secondary legislation so that we enable the Secretary of State to introduce it only when they “must” comply according to the trade deal and not at their whim, whereby they “can”. That change from “can” to “must” will be vital to ensure that there is not an open door for Executive action.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend makes another very good point about the inadequacies of the scrutiny process.

Access to British markets is a huge prize for many other global economies. The Government have to stop selling us short and put in place a proper, core trade strategy that will allow our world-leading businesses to thrive and, for once, truly deliver for communities across the country.

Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 12th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I want to put on record my thanks to all parliamentarians who have contributed to the passage of the Bill. I thank officials at the DIT for their work and all those House staff who have supported the debates both in the Chamber and in Committee.

I also want to put on record my desire to see a deepening of our trade links with our friends in Australia and New Zealand through trade agreements and, indeed, ever closer relationships at all levels. Both countries are close global allies through a common history, and face similar challenges and have similar opportunities in the years to come. I particularly welcome the two very fine Labour Governments they have in office. The next UK Labour Government will work with these free trade deals for the benefit of our people here, and indeed of our friends in Australia and New Zealand.

Specifically on the negotiations, the high commissions of Australia and New Zealand have been remarkably helpful in briefing colleagues as talks progressed, and I am very grateful to them. I was very grateful this morning to meet Mr Don Farrell, the Minister for Trade and Tourism in Australia, to emphasise the Opposition’s desire to deepen that relationship. The Minister mentioned on Report that he was working on the commencement of the deals, but gave no particular date for that. I urge him to set out the commencement dates for both deals.

Our debate on this Bill has not been about the commitment of the Opposition to our deepening relationship with Australia and New Zealand. Rather, it has been about two things. The first is the failure of this Government to achieve the best possible deals for the United Kingdom. The Australia deal is “one-sided”—not my word, but that of the current Prime Minister. In addition:

“The first step is to recognise that the Australia trade deal is not actually a very good deal for the UK… overall, the truth of the matter is that the UK gave away far too much for far too little in return.”—[Official Report, 14 November 2022; Vol. 722, c. 424.]

Those are not my words, but those of the former Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), and we can see why he said it. The impact assessment for the Australia deal shows a £94 million hit to our farming, forestry and fishing sectors, and a £225 million hit to our semi-processed food industry. On the New Zealand deal, the Government’s own impact assessment states that:

“part of the gains results from a reallocation of resources away from agriculture, forestry, and fishing”,

which will take a £48 million hit,

“and semi-processed foods”,

which will take a £97 million hit. Perhaps it is no surprise that Australia’s former negotiator at the WTO said:

“I don’t think we have ever done as well as this”.

British produce can be a huge success in new markets, but we recognise the need for a level playing field for our farmers, and it is to a proper plan for our agricultural sector that Ministers must now turn.

On climate change in the Australia deal, the Government failed to include a specific commitment to limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees. On workers’ rights, there was a failure to include commitments to the International Labour Organisation conventions, and there was a lack of substantial concessions on geographical indicators. Unless there is a change of negotiating approach, this weakness in negotiations will have even further consequences for this country in deal after deal.

Secondly, there is the lack of scrutiny. The deals were already signed and agreed before they came before Parliament, so the scope for any amendments, and therefore for meaningful debate, was fatally curtailed. It is impossible to argue that these processes represent scrutiny worthy of the name. The International Trade Committee has rightly criticised the process on the Australia deal and the Government’s premature triggering of the 21-day CRaG process without the full Select Committee consideration being available to Members. When pressed on that, the Government refused to extend the process, and all the while the previous Secretary of State swerved eight invitations—eight—to attend the International Trade Committee.

Perhaps it is no wonder that the Government keep dodging scrutiny, given their record, because as we approach the end of the year, it is a tale of broken promises on trade: no trade deal with the United States; a trade deal with India done by Diwali—promise broken; and 80% of UK trade under free trade agreements by the end of the year—not going to happen. The truth is that Conservative trade policy is a tale of bad deals or no deals at all.