Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill

Nigel Evans Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

That is fantastic news, and it has happened before the free trade agreement. That just goes to show that the fantastic people of Northern Ireland do not need Westminster to give them a free trade agreement.

I am coming to the end of my remarks. I will give several views to the Chamber on the vote tonight. This trade deal is globally good for the UK, as the figures show, but its level of goodness is very small compared with the badness of the Brexit debacle. Is it good for Scotland? The Scottish Government do not seem to think so. They were engaged with perhaps the way that the umbrella engages with the rain: more with disdain than any sort of welcome.

When it comes to fish and agriculture, we know that Brexit has been most damaging for the highlands and islands of Scotland, including my constituency. The Government cannot break down the effect of this agreement, but it looks like it will also be damaging. That means we have two events that are locally damaging. I am here as a constituency MP. I can weigh up the arguments as Chair of the Committee, but I am mindful that I vote as a constituency MP. All of Brexit—the entire process—has been economically damaging, but the final upshot of this deal is that in years to come, as we move towards independence, that damage will be used as an argument against Scotland being independent. It is a very disappointing state of affairs that this deliberate policy—chosen in Westminster—will do that to us, so we will not be listening to arguments like that in the future.

It is disappointing that this debate was not done properly, and that Members did not get to put their tuppence worth and argue the points that we have debated with the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) and my good friend from Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), because there are legitimate things to consider, to ponder and to change our minds about so that we can get a good—and a better—deal. Some people would say that the European Union has struck that better deal. Had we remained in the European Union, we would not have lost the 5% of GDP. We may well have got the GDP gains anyway from the trade deals that the European Union has just done with those two countries. The upshot might well be that there has been no gain whatever in these trade deals, because they would have come had we not decided to damage the beer producers and exporters of Kent and many others places that have been trading, as has been done.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I used to be a fine member—but not the finest member—of the International Trade Committee, so you have just inherited my mantle, Anthony Mangnall.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman is putting a very brave face on this. Many commentators in the agricultural communities in this country see it far more negatively than he does. I take his point about the 15 years. The agreement will be phased in over 15 years. Many of them see this as a car crash in slow motion. If the hon. Gentleman had argued that the agreement was good for free trade reasons, fine. The minuscule GDP gain from it has been accepted. I see the most positive thing about it as access to the CPTPP, which will be coming on stream. Britain aims in the longer future to join that organisation, which I am sure he will agree is a good thing in itself. That begs the question that, if we can do that why not—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Interventions, by their very nature, should be short.

[Mr Djanogly]

I think 15 years is a very long car crash. There will be time to regularise, and the world will be a very different place in 15 years. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point on the CPTPP. It was made at the right moment, because I was about to come on to it.

A further reason for supporting the free trade agreement, as the Secretary of State mentioned, is the more strategic one. If we consider that world growth over the next century is going to be dominated by Asia-Pacific, we need to be in on the action there. Negotiations for the UK’s accession to the CPTPP have now started and Australia, New Zealand and Canada are parties to that agreement. Clearly, if we had not settled a deal with Australia and New Zealand, not least given their Commonwealth status, we could have had a much weaker pitch with which to start negotiations with CPTPP. I see this Australia FTA as helping to set out our Pacific stall, enabling us to then move on.