I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman on the wording of the new clause. It talks about
“standards which at the time of import applied under UK law”,
which means that the same standards have to apply in the foreign law, so it goes far further than what is intended by the Bill. No country is going to accept dynamic alignment imposed on it by us, any more than we would accept it. We cannot say to Mr Barnier, “We do not want to accept dynamic alignment from you, but by the way, we want you to accept dynamic alignment from us, because you’ve got to mirror the standards we have in our domestic legislation.”
7.15 pm
These amendments are intended simply to kill trade, because nobody wanting a trade deal would accept such terms. Trade deals that allowed food to be imported from the poorest areas of the world, in particular in the developing world, would be impossible. The amendments would obviously kill off any prospect of any trade deal with anybody else. They would kill off our existing trade deals that the Minister is trying very hard to roll over with this Bill, and they might even render it impossible to secure a trade deal with the European Union. These are, therefore, trade-killing amendments. They are wholly unnecessary, and I urge the House to reject them.