I am speaking to Amendments 20, 23, 24 and 25. It is a great pleasure, as ever, to follow the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, with whom I am in complete agreement. Ministers keep emphasising that this is a continuity Bill, no doubt to reduce its significance in laying a framework for future legislation in relation to trade deals but, as we have already heard, in one area this Bill is not a continuity Bill in the sense that it does not retain the crucial compromises relating to standards and regulations which were agreed on Report of the previous Trade Bill with the noble Baroness, Lady Fairhead.
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We have not yet had a clear or honest explanation of that rather important change. What we have had is simply a mixture of rather lame excuses and comments
as to why writing standards and regulations into the Bill is no longer necessary. The real reason for that, of course—as has become increasingly clear—is that the United Kingdom is desperate to turn its back on the EU and conclude a trade deal with the United States. It was no great surprise when the International Trade Minister recently rebuked Jamie Oliver and the many others leading the campaign for high food, animal welfare and hygiene standards on behalf of millions of people. She commented that their campaign was making it “more difficult” to secure a trade deal with the United States. Well, the millions of people in this country who support high regulation standards in relation to the issues covered by this group of amendments do not oppose a trade deal with the United States as such; they oppose the importation of unhygienically produced foodstuffs—from wherever they come—meat and poultry stuffed with hormones and cheap produce manufactured by mass production methods that would not be allowed in this country.
It is worth repeating a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, when he moved this amendment. Food-borne illness has been described as America’s secret epidemic. Every year in America, at least 3,000 people die of food poisoning and 130,000 people are hospitalised. We know—because the American Food and Drug Administration tells us—that American chicken, beef and pork contains high levels of the bacterium E. coli and that the United States has at the very least 40,000 cases of salmonella every year. Indeed, a recent United States Department of Agriculture study revealed that about a quarter of all chicken pieces sold in stores across America were contaminated with salmonella. So, perhaps the great British public have a strong point with regard to high food standards.
I must tell the Minister that the 80% of the population who have in the past few years consistently expressed their views, often very forcefully, on food and animal welfare standards and regulations, the campaigning right and left-wing popular newspapers and their petitions —which have already been mentioned—the pressure groups, the National Farmers’ Union and the large spectrum of countryside groups will not change their minds. The Government are on a collision course with the people—not with the mere 48% of people who opposed Brexit but with a great majority of the British people; that is, the 80% who want these standards and regulations written into this Bill and, if necessary, other Bills.
In one sense, these amendments reflect that huge public demand. In another sense, they are probing amendments to see what excuses and explanations the Minister will come up with on this occasion for his Government’s decision to no longer be willing to write high standards and relevant regulations into the Bill. Perhaps—just perhaps—the Minister will be able to give us an honest appraisal of what Britain’s trade strategy actually is, including how farmers and the agricultural sector fit into it and how the empty slogan of “a global Britain” will be translated into a credible set of policies consistent with the promises made less than a year ago in the Conservative election manifesto. I will not hold my breath. I expect these amendments to reappear on Report. Indeed, it would be excellent if a compromise amendment could be agreed between
the Minister and the signatories to one or two of these amendments. Alas, more realistically, I think that after further discussion on Report, we will have to resort to a vote in order to include in the Bill the high standards and relevant regulations mentioned in these amendments.