My Lords, I am delighted to move Amendment 54 and speak to Amendment 55, which is in my name and those of the noble Baronesses, Lady Henig and Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, to whom I am grateful. I am also grateful to them and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for supporting Amendment 54.
At the outset, I shall refer to something that my noble friend Lord Grimstone of Boscobel said in Grand Committee on 6 October, in reply to an earlier debate. He said:
“It would require a statutory process for these food standards to be altered.”[Official Report, 6/10/20; col. GC 198.]
I should like to place on record my understanding, which was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, that food standards are set by statutory instruments, by regulation. The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, referred to one in particular. So the regulations could be amended or repealed by statutory instrument. The reason why that is important, and why I refer to it in the context of Amendments 54 and 55, is that because of what happened yesterday there is a greater need to put these issues into the Bill to become primary legislation that can be repealed only by further primary legislation. I do not wish to dwell on what happened, but it was extraordinary. Amendment 16, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, was voted down, but Amendment 18, which was passed by an overwhelming majority in this place, was taken off the table.
That begs the question that I am exploring through these two probing amendments to see whether we take them further on Report. Can the Minister say what resources in terms of staff have been made available to the Trade and Agriculture Commission, which currently has only a six-month remit? My distinct impression is that it has no staff and that every meeting convened and every press conference held is staffed by members of the Department for International Trade. Does the commission have a separate budget? If so, what we are proposing in the amendment will be miniscule in comparison to the existing budget of the commission. If it has no budget and relies completely on the resources and staff of the Department for International Trade, it is—I am sorry to use the word—a sham, an empty vessel, there in name alone, purely as a sop to the farm lobby.
That is borne out by the fact that on 29 September, a shadow trade commission was set up, the Future British Standards Coalition. It includes representatives of Sustain, the leading body, as well as the Tenant Farmers
Association, Public Sector 100 and many more organisations. I understand that it will be attended by the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge. As far as they are concerned, there is a need for a shadow body on an ongoing basis to set the criteria for future trade agreements, to check the criteria of the existing roll-over agreements that are before us today and to report to this place, in particular, to our International Agreements Sub-Committee.
There was great dismay that yesterday’s amendment on international standards in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, was not carried. I declare that I am an associate of the British Veterinary Association, as set out in the register, whose president, James Russell, said yesterday:
“If the Government won’t legislate to protect our standards it is vital that the Trade and Agriculture Commission is given more powers and stature to safeguard them in future trade deals.”
I am going slightly further in my probing amendments and I draw my noble friend’s attention—I know he does his homework and I am sorry if I spoilt his weekend—to the paragraph on page 79 of the Henry Dimbleby report. This is the only reference I am going to make to that report and the annexe. In its recommendations to the Government, he says:
“The Government should give itself a statutory duty to commission an independent report on all proposed trade agreements, assessing their impact on: economic productivity; food safety and public health; the environment and climate change; society and labour; human rights; and animal welfare. This report would be presented alongside a Government response when any final trade treaty is laid before Parliament. Sufficient time must be guaranteed for the discussion of these documents in the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and by the relevant select committees”.
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Mr Dimbleby goes on to identify the procedures used by most of the jurisdictions with which we are seeking trade deals. I realise that with the exception of Japan they fall outwith the current agreement. However, the report refers to countries with international trade commissions and those with well-developed parliamentary procedures to review future trade agreements, as we are currently doing with Japan.
My question to the Minister is simple. While I understand that the conclusions are in Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy Part One report and that, regrettably, the Government’s response will not come before the Trade Bill leaves this House, what is the status of that report and of Dimbleby and others on his panel, including the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. Will the Government follow that advice by establishing either a beefed-up Trade and Agriculture Commission or, as set out in Amendments 54 and 55, an international trade commission? In Amendment 54, I set out what the standards would be limited to but that they could go beyond animal welfare, protection of the environment, food safety, hygiene, traceability, plant health and employment rights. We go on to say that the international trade commission must give advice and report annually. I hope that the Government will come forward with amendments of their own and that the report on each future trade deal will be debated.
To conclude, I hope that my noble friend will take this opportunity to state what resources and staffing are available to enable the Trade and Agriculture
Commission to fulfil its remit, and that he will agree that statutory protection of standards, including animal welfare, food safety and environmental protection, needs to be included in the Bill, as these amendments seek to do. Will he join his adviser, Henry Dimbleby, in recognising that we need either a beefed-up Trade and Agriculture Commission or a replacement such as an international trade commission, as suggested in the amendments. We do not want to revert to the situation in the mid-1990s, under a previous Conservative Government, whereby we unilaterally banned sow stalls and tethers to maintain our high animal welfare and environmental standards, at which point, imports were allowed from Poland and Denmark that undercut our high standards and put 50% of our pig producers out of business. I hope that my noble friend will agree that he does not wish to return to that situation.
These amendments are intended to be probing amendments at this stage, but I will listen closely to the debate and, in particular, to what my noble friend says in summing up. I beg to move.