My Lords, in moving my Amendment 98, I will speak to Amendment 99, both of which are amendments to Amendment 97 in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh. Once again, I thank my noble friend Lady Noakes for adding her name in support of my amendments.
My noble friend Lady McIntosh seeks to require the Trade and Agriculture Commission to retain UK standards, which means EU standards. She does not refer in her amendment to the importance of conforming to WTO rules or to the benefits of being free to decide our own regulations.
I believe that standards are not two-dimensional, high or low, but that equivalent outcomes for regulations on animal welfare, the environment, and food and plant safety may be achieved through the adoption of a less cumbersome, more proportionate regulatory system.
My noble friend, and the noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle, in his Amendment 101, seek to strengthen the powers of the Trade and Agriculture Commission. I believe that this is not necessary, for the reasons given by my noble friend the Minister on 28 July, when he said that he is
“committed to ensuring that trade agreements do not compromise our high standards and will continue to take into consideration the views of relevant stakeholders across the food supply chain on the impact of trade deals. A range of established stakeholder groups is already in place to advise the development of government policy on trade.” —[Official Report, 28/7/20; col. 197.]
Since then, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for International Trade has set up 11 new trade advisory groups, including the agri-food trade advisory group. The purpose of my amendment is to ensure that if your Lordships’ House were to support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh, it would then be amended to require adherence to WTO rules.
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If I may, I will also refer to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, about the Food Standards Agency in a previous debate. He mentioned that there were 400 cases per year of salmonella in the United States, and implied that this showed how awful—I think he, or another noble Lord, used the word “vile”—American food standards were. I think this is a bit of an overstatement: the incidence of salmonella in the United Kingdom, adjusted for our population, is actually about 20% to 25% higher than in the United States. Further to that, the incidence of campylobacter in the
United Kingdom is five times higher than in the United States. Therefore, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for the Food Standards Agency to advise against importing American chicken, which obviously presents much less of a risk to the consumer than chicken produced in this country, where poultry farmers are forbidden to use treatments such as peracetic acid, which is used in the US.
My noble friend Lady McIntosh has not indicated that she wishes to divide the House; she said that she wants to hear what other noble Lords and the Minister have to say. I, similarly, would therefore like to wait to hear what the Minister is going to say—my noble friend Lady McIntosh has the benefit that I must make a decision before her.