I completely agree with my hon. Friend. His point that the Good Friday agreement is being put in jeopardy is absolutely spot on. That is why the Government are betting on a Trump victory. President Trump has declared that when it comes to doing business with the UK, as far as he is concerned
“everything is on the table.”
The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has said of the trade talks:
“We need to make sure that we don’t use food safety as a ruse to try and protect a particular industry.”
The Government have even voted against their own Back Benchers’ amendments to protect high standards. They voted five times against amendments to the Agriculture Bill, and five times against food standards amendments to the Trade Bill.
The effect of clauses 2 to 9 would be to prevent the Scottish Parliament from requiring goods or services to meet the standards that it decides. The UK Government’s White Paper outlined examples of this. Page 77 has a case study on deposit return schemes, page 78 has one on food labelling and pages 79 to 82 cover food manufacturing, including hygiene, recycling and animal welfare. On page 82, it specifically mentions minimum pricing as a regulatory restriction. Page 85 talks about building regulations and construction permits. As Professor Michael Dougan of Liverpool University observes, Scotland’s minimum price controls could be
“characterised as a form of product requirement”,
making them
“fully subject to the principle of mutual recognition.”
This would mean that
“imported English alcohol would not have to comply with any new Scottish requirements. Once the mutual recognition obligation applies, there is virtually no scope for Scotland…to justify applying its new rules to English imports: mutual recognition can only be set aside on the basis of serious health threats arising from the internal movement of pests/diseases/unsafe foodstuffs.”