Oral Answers to Questions

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for International Trade on safeguards for British agriculture in a future trade deal with Australia.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

What assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the proposed UK-Australia trade deal on (a) UK and (b) Scottish agricultural producers.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

As part of the agreement with Australia, we secured a special agricultural safeguard, which has a strict automatic volume trigger. It means that for the first 10 years, Australian beef and lamb will be subject to a tariff rate quota, and for the subsequent five years it will be subject to a special agricultural safeguard with a volume trigger.

[George Eustice]

The Department for International Trade has a number of groups, including one covering agri-food, that discuss the approach to trade deals and help the Department to identify priorities. Necessarily, when in the final stages of a negotiation, the mandate the Government have is kept confidential, otherwise it would undermine our negotiating position, but we do share as much as we are able to with stakeholders, including the National Farmers Union.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that there is tariff-free access for Australian farmers from day one up to a meaningless cap 60 times current levels of imported beef, and the same applies to lamb up to a cap three times current import levels? Does that not render promises of a 15-year protection period absolutely redundant, and can we expect the same so-called protections in future trade deals?

[George Eustice]

We have to look at this in the context of the fact that at the moment Australia does not sell us any of these goods because, in the case of beef, it has a minuscule tariff rate quota of only about 1,400 tonnes. We also have to look at it in the context of the fact that we already have a TRQ with New Zealand that is over 100,000 tonnes, and New Zealand does not fill that quota.