I know exactly why the car is sitting in his shed. It is because no one will take it out.
The opportunity is there. The last time I was in New Zealand, I was talking to people about British cars and I mentioned the word “Jag”. They all said, “I would love a Jag, but they are too expensive.” That is what this trade deal is going to turn around. Most New Zealanders and Australians would like to buy British. It still has that mark, and I am not just talking about cars. I have not seen an Aga stove in a New Zealand home for ages, but they would go right into the farming community given half a chance. The removal of tariffs and the consequential price drop will encourage the sale of our vehicles, and much more than that.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned small firms. I have a small firm in my constituency that I visited recently. It has only been going for three or four years. It is run by two or three people, and it produces gin. It is called Silent Pool, and it is becoming a niche and famous gin. When they started, they filled the bottles by hand. Now they have increased production such that it is all done by machinery. They have a huge warehouse on the edge of the property, packed with hundreds—if not thousands—of tonnes of gin, on pallets, wrapped ready to be exported to Australia. They are an example of what this trade deal can do for small firms in this country, because the British people have regained their ability to be entrepreneurs, and to work and to push forwards.
I am interested in the comments made from the Scottish Front Bench. Going back a couple of generations, the peoples that emigrated to Australia and New Zealand were Scots and English, almost entirely. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) might recall that there is a place called Dunedin, the fourth city in New Zealand. I understand—although I will probably be corrected instantly—that the name means “new Edinburgh”. People there would be scathing at his comments about the absence of such a link. Even if they are second or third-generation, it is a truly Scottish town, and in the middle of the Octagon in the centre of the town they have a statue of Rabbie Burns. With good Scots thinking, he is placed there with his back to the church, and faces the pub. How Scottish can you get?
I am a member of the UK National Farmers Union, and this is where I have had some wobbles. In a Westminster Hall debate on free trade with Australia and New Zealand, I mentioned—as has been mentioned here time and again, and indeed my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade covered it—that free trade cuts both ways. We have, in the main, an excellent UK agricultural industry, although it is hampered
somewhat; but we must recognise, as has been recognised by speakers today and will be again, that Australia and New Zealand are formidable agricultural giants.
I have many farms in my constituency. The biggest dairy farm has about 350 cows and my biggest sheep farmer has perhaps 1,000 sheep after lambing. Two dairy farms that I know of in the north of the south island of New Zealand are milking 1,500 and 2,500 cows twice daily. In the farm that I left in the high country of Central Otago—which is a bit like the hill country of Scotland, with hill farming—after lambing we had 50,000 sheep. The difference is staggering. The idea that has been put forward by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade of staggering and layering the approach must be the right one.
The difference for farmers in New Zealand is that they are free to farm. I was really disappointed and cross with the comments on the standard of farming and of animal welfare in New Zealand. It could not be higher; it is equivalent to here, but they do not work under all the restrictions, regulations and so on that our farmers here and in Scotland do—many of which come from the EU, and could be removed now that we have come out of Europe. So the chance must be taken now, as we move forward, as these layers change, for the Government to work with the NFU and our farmers—they are not always the same—to ease the strain and make sure that our farmers can farm better and freer.
The UK needs its farmers and food producers. The potential competition from Australia and New Zealand is an imperative that we must look out for, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, but we must use the time we have, because we must keep those farmers.
I am delighted with the trade agreement—obviously, for reasons of my background—and hence with the Bill. I will not read all seven volumes of the agreements—I leave that to the Committee—but for me, it means a return towards normality in our relationship with our nearest kith-and-kin nations and kith-and-kin people. It is a natural thing for us to do, and it is natural that we will get an understanding without the damage that has been predicted, I think incorrectly, by some on the Opposition Benches.
3.33 pm