It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar). I welcome the chance to speak in this important debate as a Member of Parliament representing a rural constituency up in Cumbria that has a huge agricultural and farming footprint. I also speak as a vet who has worked on farms in the UK and in Australia, and I am a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. Quite rightly, there has been much talk about the International Trade Committee’s great work in looking at the trade agreements. The EFRA Committee has produced a report on the Australia trade deal, to which I refer colleagues. I preface my comments by very much welcoming the new
Prime Minister and the new Government who are coming in. I am fully supportive of them. However, as a constituency MP and given my interests, I do need to speak out.
I am broadly very supportive of trade deals in principle, and I absolutely adore Australia. I cannot be the only Member in the House who welled up this summer when watching the last episode of “Neighbours”. I am very supportive of everything that goes on in Australia. However, as I have said in the Chamber before, trade deals need to be fair to both partners—as the Australians would say, “You would want a fair crack of the whip”—and the trade deal with Australia is, unfortunately, imbalanced.
Earlier this year, in our UK winter—the Australian summer—I spoke of the one-sided nature of the Australia trade deal, which was reminiscent of the one-sided nature of the men’s Ashes cricket series that was ongoing. We will all be well aware that the England cricket team are now doing a lot better—the New Zealand cricket team will testify to how England have really lifted their game. I firmly believe that we must take a lesson from that, apply a bit of the Ben Stokes “Bazball” technique and go back into bat on these trade deals to make them much more level between the two trading partners.