UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

Fair play to Canberra, because they have no’ half scored a great deal with this one. It must be delicious to have scored such a great trade deal over your former overlords in London. I look forward to the benefits that this will bring to Scottish distilling—gin and whisky—but if exports of lamb and sheep meat from Australia to the United Kingdom are so insignificant to the Australians, why did you not write them out of the deal, because it is what you are getting the most heat on—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he does not refer directly to the Secretary of State.

[Dave Doogan]

I beg your pardon, Madam Deputy Speaker. Why did the Minister not seek to write those exports out of the deal, and will she take a second opportunity to answer the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith) about what she will do if she finds herself at odds with the devolved Administrations in the devolved nations? Will she simply ram through her agenda with the UK United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I am passionate about free trade, and so are the farmers in Cumbria and so, I assume, are the farmers in Northumberland. No free trade is really free if it is not fair. When it comes to animal welfare, this deal clearly is not fair. I wonder whether the Secretary of State truly comprehends the astonishing difference in terms of animal welfare standards between farming, and livestock farming in particular, in her own community and in mine compared with Australia. There are staggering and astonishing differences in scale—the fact that we have close husbandry in this country and vast areas and no husbandry in Australia. Moreover, there is the lack of humane standards in abattoirs and also when it comes to the transportation of livestock. Surely this deal undermines our farmers, undermines the standards that we hold dear and throws our agriculture under a bus in order to get a cheap deal. How will she reply to her own farmers who will be as shocked and appalled as I am by much of this deal?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We need slightly briefer questions if we are to get everybody in. There is a ten-minute rule Bill and then business after that. If I am to get everybody in, we just need to speed up a little bit.