Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Anne-Marie Trevelyan

2nd reading
Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. To give her reassurance, all our trade negotiating teams have Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs teams within them. They are the experts from the UK Government, and they are absolutely at the heart of our negotiating teams not only for these deals, but for those we are working on now.

Part of the challenge—I understand the anxiety that has appeared, about which I hope the safeguards for these two deals have provided reassurance—is that these are of course the first two of a large number of trade deals. We are looking to accede to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, under which we will have enormous opportunities for our agriculture producers to export to something like a £9 trillion marketplace. The Australian and New Zealand trade deals are the first two of many that will afford great opportunities for some of the finest products in the world. I think we are all concerned in standing up for our constituents and ensuring the opportunity to find new export markets for those goods.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

My concern is not for the enormous farming conglomerates that we see across swathes of the countryside, but for the small tenant farmers in my constituency. They are a critical part not just of my constituency—which, incidentally, helps feed the country—but of our farming heritage. I think it is those smaller farmers that colleagues across the House are so concerned to understand, support and, if necessary, protect.

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is why we have built into these first two of our trade deals these very clear and robust safeguards, so that there cannot in the early years be the sort of surges that could risk the success of our important tenant farmers. That is also why the work that the National Farmers Union and the National Farmers Union of Scotland do is so important in helping our farming communities.

I too have many small tenanted farms in my constituency, and this is the opportunity for them to work together and to work in the new markets that will be appearing thanks to the continuing new trade deals we will strike. This is about how we can get the maximum benefit not only as they produce for our own domestic markets, but, if they choose to do so, as they export some of the finest meat in the world to new and growing markets across the world.

These two trade deals are very much the first two anchor points, as it were, of a broad and wide set of trade deals that will afford such opportunities to all our farmers, from the large farmers that are very good at fighting their own corner through to—exactly as my hon. Friend points out—our small but incredibly important farmers across our rural communities. Their importance is not only in the food they produce, but in land management and, indeed, in the wider community, so that is at the heart of the plan.

As I say, the negotiating teams that the Department for International Trade take to these negotiations have at their heart teams of experts from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as well as from other Departments as required for each of the chapters in the trade deals.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)]

18. Thank you, Mr Speaker—and I apologise for my cold. A business in my constituency was the victim of fraudsters who hacked into Barclays bank’s financial system, stealing £500,000 from its accounts. There seems to be no liability for Barclays to refund my constituent for the loss or for the police to track down the fraudsters, who seem to be Pakistan-based. What are the Government doing to protect local businesses from such fraudsters by making banks responsible, and will the Minister meet me to discuss that case?

[Victoria Atkins]

I am extremely concerned to hear that. The Government are investing more than £48 million over the next 18 months to bolster capabilities to tackle economic crime through, for instance, the new National Economic Crime Centre, which will increase the number of financial investigators and improve the regional and local response. However, I know that the Minister for Security and Economic Crime, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace), is keen to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that case with her.

Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Bill

Debate between Victoria Atkins and Anne-Marie Trevelyan

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 3rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Trevelyan]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. It is incumbent on us as we go forward with this Bill to set these new markers to ensure that we get a cultural change; we need that understanding that mental ill health is part of our life experience and most of us may well suffer from it in one form or another. For those who are the most vulnerable we absolutely need to ensure that the practices are the best they can be, so that dignity and respect is afforded to every person who needs that support.

Transparency and accountability will also allow health professionals and emergency staff to manage the risks, protecting not only the patient, but our public servants. This can protect them from false allegations and allow us to have that evidence should things go wrong. Body-worn cameras are so important in this regard. The prison in my constituency, HMP Northumberland, was one of the prisons where body-worn cameras were trialled. This has been running for nearly two years now and there has been a dramatic drop not only in the reported cases of argy-bargy between prison officers and inmates, but in poor behaviour, because inmates who might have decided to have a go cannot be bothered anymore because they know it is going to be filmed; the relationship has improved so much as a result. This has created the same thing as we see where a teacher has good discipline in the classroom, understanding that if we provide a framework everyone within it works in a more conciliatory and more constructive fashion.

[Victoria Atkins]

I am a huge supporter of body-worn cameras on police officers and on prison officers, because I believe it protects not only them, but members of the public. Does my hon. Friend agree that just as—I hope—body-worn cameras will help victims of domestic violence who perhaps do not have the confidence to give evidence against their assailants, or cannot face the consequences of doing so, the same thing may apply in respect of prisons?

[Mrs Trevelyan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Interestingly, even in the social media world we all live in, a storm of anonymity allows a level of poor behaviour. If the body-worn camera empowers people to remember that anything from good manners and good behaviour to constructive dialogue rather than more violent interventions is the way forward, this must be a tool we should be encouraging across the board. One hopes that behaviour can improve once people remember how these things can be done more constructively and with less violent interventions.