Agriculture Bill — House of Lords, 2020-09-22
Topic: Agriculture
Anne McIntosh (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am delighted to introduce this group of amendments and speak to Amendment 97. I thank the co-signatories for their support: the noble Baronesses, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick and Lady Henig, and my noble friend Lady Hodgson of Abinger I will speak briefly to other amendments in the group, but I would first like to set out how developments have taken place since we discussed an earlier version, Amendment 270, in Committee. The most significant development is that we now have a Trade and Agriculture Commission and it has met a couple of times The second development is the interim report, which has been published by Henry Dimbleby. Spoiler alert: I have carefully read Amendments 98 and 99 in the names of my noble friends Lord Trenchard and Lady Noakes, and want to dispense with them before I discuss Amendment 97 in depth. They are interesting: Amendment 98 is self-explanatory. However, along with Amendment 99, while they could be seen as fairly innocent or innocuous, they are not. In many cases they touch a raw nerve because this is a contested area of the World Trade Organization agreement. Amendment 99 refers to being "consistent with the terms of the World Trade Organization Agreement" That poses problems for me. It would be far better if it read "considered to be consistent". This is an issue on which the WTO rules are silent The Government clearly stated their commitment to animal welfare in their 2019 general election manifesto. Therefore, I would be surprised if the Minister supported that amendment. Amendments 97 and 101 are not deemed to be strict alternatives. They have been considered by the clerks in the Public Bill Office not to be inconsistent and not incompatible. It is almost a mirror image of Amendment 101, which I am sure those who have signed that amendment will speak to What I am calling for here is that we must establish criteria for maintaining standards as high or higher than those applying to imported agricultural goods. I then go on to set out what "agricultural goods" should cover, and obviously I have referred to "animal welfare … protection of the environment … food safety, hygiene and traceability, and … plant health." That relates to Amendment 90 earlier The key paragraph in subsection (3) states that the "Government may not make any international trade agreement that contains provisions relating to the importation of agricultural and food products into the United Kingdom unless the Trade and Agriculture Commission has expressed in writing to the Secretary of State that it is satisfied the criteria under subsection (1) have been met" The importance of this is that Parliament will have to decide a number of questions in the context of the Bill. Does Parliament want to have a Trade and Agriculture Commission which winds up its work at the end of December? If so, it would therefore not be permanent and its advice would not be binding, and it would not be a statutory authority, which is currently the case. Or does Parliament believe that there is a need for a permanent statutory body, operating independently of the Department for International Trade, with its own staff, offices and facilities, and whose advice would be binding on the Government, in the sense that they would have to give good reasons to Parliament as to why they did not follow the recommendations Subsection (4) of my amendment says that: "The Trade and Agriculture Commission may submit recommendations to the Secretary of State for how the draft agreement could be revised in order to meet the criteria" that I set out earlier. In subsection (5) it says that: "Where the Trade and Agriculture Commission submit recommendations to the Secretary of State under subsection (4)", which I just referred to, the Secretary of State will have 14 calendar days to respond and then that response and the recommendations will be laid before Parliament. The key is that those recommendations and the report will be debated in the usual way—it will be for Parliament to decide whether it should be through the Select Committees in each House, most likely the new Select Committee on international treaties The reason I put in subsections (6) and (7) is that I would fervently like to see the Trade and Agriculture Commission be independent, have autonomy and operate apart from the Department for International Trade, so that the commission is independently staffed and its press releases are not written by the department, which currently appears to be the case. I have set out that: "The Trade and Agriculture Commission may appoint staff and advisers … and … may authorise staff to do anything required or authorised to be done by the Commission." My understanding is that that is currently not the case I have drawn inspiration for this amendment from the Dimbleby report and his recommendations for government. I assume that as the Dimbleby report was requested by the Government, my noble friend the Minister and the Department for International Trade will draw on the report’s recommendations. On page 79, the report helpfully sets out that: "The Government should give itself a statutory duty to commission an independent report on all proposed trade agreements, assessing their impact on: economic productivity; food safety and public health; the environment and climate change; society and labour; human rights; and animal welfare. This report would be presented alongside a Government response when any final trade treaty is laid before Parliament. Sufficient time must be guaranteed for the discussion of these documents in the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and by the relevant select committees." It goes on to say that any impact assessment should adopt a "holistic" approach; that it should be "independent"; that the impact assessment should be "performed by experts" and that this function "would be permanent"; and that parliamentary scrutiny would be set out on a "statutory basis". That is what I have endeavoured to do in Amendment 97—no more, no less I am further indebted to other recommendations made in the Dimbleby report. On page 77, it helpfully sets out how trade agreements are scrutinised across the world. We are obviously most familiar with EU trade agreements where, "The International Trade Committee of the European Parliament reports on the proposed agreement" The agreement then has to have the approval of the majority of the members of the European Parliament, and then it passes to the Council of Ministers "for their agreement by qualified majority (55% majority representing 65% of the EU population)." I put it to the House that we would not want a situation in which any scrutiny in this place or the other place was less than that which we currently enjoy for negotiating trade agreements through the European Parliament, as has been the case for as long as we have been a part of it. I will not rehearse this in detail, but every other major parliamentary legislator representing countries that we would hope to do trade deals with—Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States of America, Japan and Switzerland—all have some form of advanced parliamentary scrutiny, although none goes as far as a veto I prefer my Amendment 97 and would like to hear other voices in the debate before I decide whether to test the opinion of the House. It is for the House this evening, and for Parliament as a whole, to take a decision on whether we want to see the Trade and Agriculture Commission continue in its present form beyond the end of this year. I have tabled a similar amendment but calling for a different body—a permanent international trade commission, for the Trade Bill—and we will obviously consider that at a future date. I am grateful for this opportunity to set out my stall. I hope that my amendment will find favour. With that, I beg to move Amendment 98 (to Amendment 97)