My right hon. Friend is right to raise what we should do domestically. He also illustrates another point. There is a history of trade negotiations, including on different standards of animal welfare, that Ministers could have taken heed of, sought to learn lessons from and put into these negotiations.
The now Prime Minister said that the Government had no intention of striking any deals that did not benefit our farmers, but the reality is that the vast majority of trade deals, which she trumpeted in her leadership campaign, were roll-over deals replicating existing EU agreements—not so much an exercise in driving a hard bargain as a national exercise in cut-and-paste with accompanying photographs on Instagram.
Perhaps it is no surprise that the Prime Minister’s own colleagues have been so critical of her approach to trade. The right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that he faced “challenges” in trying to get her to enshrine animal welfare in deals. No wonder the NFU said that it saw
“almost nothing in the deal that will prevent an increase in imports of food produced well below the production standards required of UK farmers”.