Trade Bill — House of Lords, 2020-12-07
Topic: Agriculture
Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to all who have spoken in this debate and in particular to the Minister for his response to the concerns that have been raised. His conclusion backs ours; nearly everybody who has spoken has spoken in favour of the permanency, beyond an initial three or six years, of the TAC. He himself just accepted that in his last few words To come back to the basic points: we all agree it is excellent that the government amendments put the TAC on a statutory footing. In the words of my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, that goes a little way but not far enough towards independence I am not sure I got an answer on which resources will be allocated. I realise it is not our place, in this House, to say that, but we did not get an answer on it. On the question of permanence, I will revert to that The noble Baroness, Lady Henig, identified a gap in all the amendments—government amendments and Amendments 7 and 44—in a lack of understanding about what government strategy for trade will be. I agree with her on that. Why would we want to tie ourselves to all these commitments, which, inevitably, a CPTPP free trade agreement would involve, when we are tying ourselves up in knots regarding those with the EU? It also begs the question of why we have committed ourselves to a strict regime on state aid with the Japan free trade agreement, which goes further than what we are currently willing to agree to in a future trade agreement with the EU The noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, put his finger on the point in his last question, but also on the fact that the matter of standards is unfinished business, which we have carried over from the Agriculture Act. I join other noble Lords in paying tribute to all the farm organisations—the NFU, the TFA, the CLA and all the green organisations, which have been united with the public. The noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, mentioned the 1 million signatures we had that gave rise to amendments in this group, which were previously tabled during the passage of the Agriculture Bill My noble friend Lord Caithness was right to stop at one and a half cheers. Both he and the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle, have identified the need to know more about what the membership of the Trade and Agriculture Commission will be going forward Although my noble friend the Minister has put a little more meat on the bones, it is still vague I did not understand entirely whether the relevant committee, especially in the Commons, will be entitled to do a public appointment hearing regarding the future chair, or the reappointment of the current chair, of the TAC. My noble friend may have misunderstood the role of human rights issues and employment law in this regard. These are now standard in agreements before the World Trade Organization and international agreements, so I am slightly surprised that he thought I was seeking to undermine the Equality and Human Rights Commission in this country, which of course was not my intention On independence, I am not sure that we are 100% where we should be, certainly on resources. It would have been helpful to have further clarification. I have made my point about how appointments should be scrutinised by the relevant committee and I stand by that. I am sorry if I did not hear my noble friend confirm that. Also, when my noble friend says that reports on agreements will be "laid before Parliament", I presume he means that they will be debated and voted on in the usual way It would be more helpful than anything else if my noble friend would withdraw government Amendment 36 at this stage. I do not think that it has been drafted clearly and it does not sum up the debate that we have heard on this group. What compounds this is that, on a closer reading of government Amendment 34 on which my noble friend has relied in summing up his arguments, the review to which he has referred, in subsection (4) of government Amendment 34, allows that, in subsection (6B) of proposed new Section 42 of the Agriculture Act: "The Secretary of State may by regulations repeal subsections (4A), (4B) and (6A), and amend subsection (5) to remove reference to advice requested in accordance with subsection (4A)" That of course is the very advice that is the subject of this group of amendments: requesting advice from the Trade and Agriculture Commission on the matters referred to in subsection (2) of the new clause "except insofar as they relate to human life or health." I also did not quite understand what the Minister said in summing up how the Government will report. He said that the TAC will report on so much as regards advice, but not on public health. He did not outline how or when that duty will be exercised in terms of future trade agreements, which body would be doing those, and to whom that advice would be tendered if it is not going to be tendered by the Trade and Agriculture Commission I think that the will of the House has been expressed strongly this evening that public health and food security should continue to be included. I do not know whether I have an opportunity to revert to my noble friend to answer those two points before I decide whether to withdraw my Amendment 7.