Free Trade Agreement Negotiations: Australia — House of Commons, 2021-06-17
Topic: Agriculture
Emily Thornberry (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement and for publishing the outline agreement at quarter to 1 last night—nothing screams confidence in the deal you have negotiated like slipping it on to your website after midnight. I will not address every element of the deal she has highlighted today. On some, we will have to reserve judgment until we have seen the full treaty text and the economic impact assessment. After all, this was the Secretary of State who agreed a brand new Japan deal that turned out, according to her own figures, to deliver lower benefits for Britain than the one we already had However, the one area of this deal on which we can reach a verdict now is the terms agreed on agriculture. In doing so, I am not going to hold the Secretary of State to some impossible ideal; I am simply going to hold her to the past commitments she has made to protect our standards and our farming industry. Let us start with standards. She said last October that she would not sign a trade deal that would allow British farmers to be undercut by cheap imports produced using practices that are allowed in other countries but banned in the UK. She called that an important principle, so let me give her just 10 examples of such practices in Australia: allowing slurry to pollute rivers; using growth-promoting antibiotics; housing hens in barren cages; trimming their beaks with hot blades; mulesing young lambs; keeping pregnant pigs in sow stalls; branding cattle with hot irons; dehorning and spaying them without pain relief; and routinely transporting livestock for 48 hours; and doing that without their having rest, food or water. All those practices are in common use in Australia, but banned in Britain. Yet, under the deal she has signed, the meat from farms that use those practices will come into our country tariff-free, undermining British standards, undercutting British farmers and breaking the promises made to the British people So much for protecting our standards, what about protecting our farming industry? The Secretary of State said last November: "We have no intention of ever striking a deal that doesn’t benefit farmers" Yet the deal she has just signed will allow Australia’s farm corporations to export more than 60 times the amount of beef next year as they exported to Britain last year before they face a single penny in tariffs. It is the equivalent of immediate, unlimited tariff-free trade, which is why when the Secretary of State says that Australian farmers will be in the same position as EU farmers after 15 years, she is talking nonsense. They will be in exactly the same position from year one, but without the requirement to meet EU standards. No wonder Australia’s former negotiator at the World Trade Organisation said: "I don’t think we’ve ever done as well as this. Getting rid of all tariffs and quotas forever is virtually an unprecedented result." Of course, he is right. When Japan and Korea negotiated their deals with Australia, they set tariff-free allowances in year one that allowed for a modest increase in the amount of beef Australia had exported to them in the previous year—7% for Korea and 10% for Japan. By comparison, the deal the Secretary of State has just signed allows Australia to increase its exports of beef by 6,000% without paying any tariffs. In the Government’s own scoping paper last July we have it in black and white. That increase in Australian exports will mean: "A fall in output and employment" in the UK’s agricultural sector. [Interruption.] The right hon. Lady says it is wrong, but I am just quoting her Department. So British farmers are to be left worse off as a result of her deal. This is another broken promise, with more to come when New Zealand, Canada, Brazil and America demand the same deal for their exports. Let me be absolutely clear. We want good trade deals with other countries. We want trade deals that will create jobs, support our industries, and strengthen our economy and our recovery. But, to be blunt about it, we want the kind of results from our trade deals that Australia has just achieved from us The Secretary of State told the newspapers in April that she would sit her inexperienced Australian counterpart in an uncomfortable chair and show him how to play at this level. I am afraid that this deal has exposed the Secretary of State as the one who is not up to the job. Britain needs and deserves better We need someone who will keep the promises they make to the public and to Parliament; someone who will promote British standards around the world, not allow them to be undermined; someone who will protect our farming and steel industries, not throw them to the wolves; someone who will get the results for their country that the Australian Trade Minister has delivered for his. The Secretary of State has shown that she is not that person, so there is only one question that matters today: will she guarantee to give Parliament not just a debate but a binding vote on the deal that she has agreed with Australia so that we can reject the terms she has agreed on farming and send someone else back to the table to get a better deal for our country?