These Australian and New Zealand free trade agreements are in the round, I believe, a good thing for the UK and they have my support and good wishes for their potential in binding our countries ever closer together.
I have heard various attacks on various aspects of the deals, but some of the complaints are a bit like comparing apples with pears—like those who complain about falling trade with the EU and then say that there will not be much coming in from Australia under this deal to compensate. Surely, given where we are, and now that we can negotiate our own trade deals post Brexit, we need to be getting out there and negotiating those deals, like we have with this deal, even if we also need to be organising a better deal with the EU. It might be more persuasive if opponents suggested that the EU had a better FTA with Australia than we do; but of course that case cannot be made—perhaps because the EU and Australia do not yet have a deal. Many provisions here are uncontentious and just good to have, for instance, procurement provisions that create the level playing field, developed beyond WTO minimums, to provide for non-discrimination and anti-corruption, meaning that bidders for contracts will not be put off by the likelihood of local businesses getting preference. Co-operation on the recognition of professional services, business mobility and the recognition of qualifications will be a great help, not only in enabling UK plc to promote our excellent professional services to Australia, but allowing Australian professionals to work here in areas where there is a crying need for such highly qualified workers, such as City law firms. The import of young talent will be a significant benefit to us. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s view on how these immigration provisions will impact on future free trade agreement negotiations. For instance, in our FTA negotiations with India will the Australian worker mobility provisions constitute the starting point?
Some people complain that the additional trade figures proposed are small, that Australia will sell more to us under this deal than we sell to it, at least in the short term, or that Australia has got a better deal. This is short-term political point scoring and it is short-sighted, because we need to look at the future potential to increase trade. If UK business is provided with anything like what the Government say will be approximately £10 billion of new legally guaranteed market access, this deal represents a huge opportunity.
Earlier in the debate there was a discussion as to how this FTA might help smaller businesses in practice. In that regard, I was contacted only a few days ago by a Huntingdon family-run mid-size company called Le Mark Group, which makes high-value work clothes, tapes and stage flooring. It is now targeting Australia and is already grateful for help from the international fund. Apparently, the Australians are very keen on its “Dirty Rigger” range of work gloves. The key point the company makes is that having the FTA in place has meant that it has had the solid platform to find a dealer that would truly commit to promoting and stocking a sufficient quantity of product. So this deal will help business, small as well as large, and I think more positivity in this debate would have been justified in that regard.
Representing a rural seat, I understand concerns about food and meat imports and ensuring that quality is maintained and that UK farmers are not left in an
uncompetitive situation. Given that full market access will not happen for 15 years, there should be plenty of time to cater for the harmonisation of environmental and welfare issues, and we should be looking to ensure that that happens. I heard the Secretary of State confirm that that is the intention. In any event, all existing Australian beef and lamb is currently eaten domestically in Australia or in Asia; there is no spare capacity. One also needs to ask: whatever levels of imports are set or not set, given the increase in meat consumption in Asia why would Australia want to switch to exporting mass-market, high-volume, low-cost meat products to the UK, with ever more expensive transport costs? My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson), in a thoughtful speech, suggested that Australia might stop trading with China and then start flooding our markets as a result. One can argue that, as it is possible, but it is highly unlikely, given the number of other meat-hungry countries that are close to Australia.