UK Parliament / Open data

Trade (Australia and New Zealand) Bill

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is why we have built into these first two of our trade deals these very clear and robust safeguards, so that there cannot in the early years be the sort of surges that could risk the success of our important tenant farmers. That is also why the work that the National Farmers Union and the National Farmers Union of Scotland do is so important in helping our farming communities.

I too have many small tenanted farms in my constituency, and this is the opportunity for them to work together and to work in the new markets that will be appearing thanks to the continuing new trade deals we will strike. This is about how we can get the maximum benefit not only as they produce for our own domestic markets, but, if they choose to do so, as they export some of the finest meat in the world to new and growing markets across the world.

These two trade deals are very much the first two anchor points, as it were, of a broad and wide set of trade deals that will afford such opportunities to all our

farmers, from the large farmers that are very good at fighting their own corner through to—exactly as my hon. Friend points out—our small but incredibly important farmers across our rural communities. Their importance is not only in the food they produce, but in land management and, indeed, in the wider community, so that is at the heart of the plan.

As I say, the negotiating teams that the Department for International Trade take to these negotiations have at their heart teams of experts from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as well as from other Departments as required for each of the chapters in the trade deals.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
719 cc141-2 
Session
2022-23
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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