My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 15 in my name, and I support other amendments in this group, notably Amendment 16 in the name of my noble friend Lady Willis of Summertown, as well as Amendments 18 and 29.
I am grateful for the support of the noble Lords, Lord Randall of Uxbridge and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, alongside my noble friend Lady Willis, for Amendment 15. My intention in tabling it was twofold: to understand how the Government expect the CPTPP agreement to operate in the context of the commitments that they have made on forest risk commodities and how they will ensure robust monitoring and enforcement with the new countries that we will trade with in that bloc and, linked to this, to query when the Government will enact the forest risk commodities regulations under Schedule 17 to the Environment Act 2021.
On the latter point, I welcome the announcement at the weekend by the Environment Secretary on some of the content of the regulations. The letter that we received from the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, yesterday said that they will be brought into force as soon as parliamentary time allows. These announcements suggest that the regulations are imminent, so I hope the Minister can now clarify for us exactly when they will be brought in. Will it be January, before he comes back? If he cannot tell me that, can he confirm that the regulations will at least be in place before we accept the rest of the agreement? That is a crucial point.
It is critical that this happens as soon as it can, not least because, following the Financial Services and Markets Act earlier this year, in response to an amendment passed by this House, the Treasury is required to assess the extent to which regulation of the UK financial system is adequate to eliminate the financing of prohibited forest risk commodities. This review can happen only after the regulations in Schedule 17 are laid.
Moreover, the Environment Act received Royal Assent over two years ago and the consultation on this research closed over 18 months ago. In the meantime, Global Witness’s research in November showed that the UK’s direct imports of forest risk commodities such as beef, soy and palm oil directly contributed to areas of
deforestation nearly twice the size of Paris. This has happened during the Government’s two-year delay. In that time, the EU has introduced its own rules, which have much wider scope, and has really moved forward with some ambitious thresholds.
This is important and relevant to today’s debate, because evidence shows that some countries that are parties to the CPTPP may engage in both illegal and legal deforestation. Indeed, although Schedule 17 regulations need to be implemented quickly, because we do not yet have any environmental requirements for what is imported, they are not perfect. They cover only illegal deforestation at the moment, which would not address the risk of the whole CPTPP treaty incentivising the production of deforestation risk commodities in countries where national laws are not sufficiently robust on deforestation or the rights of indigenous peoples, as was the situation in Brazil, as we knew, and is certainly the situation in Peru, from where we import quite a lot of stuff.
Will the Minister comment on how his department has reviewed this risk and what action we, the UK, will take to minimise it under the new agreement? With the Schedule 17 regulations expected imminently—but, as I said, I am looking forward to the clarification—could he also confirm that any forest risk commodities prohibited by the regulations will be prevented from entering our country, and how? Without having sight of these regulations, it is unclear how they will interact with the provisions of the CPTPP, which is what my amendment is aiming to clear up. Also, can the Minister confirm that, if these regulations are expanded or strengthened in the future, the agreement will not prevent the implementation of strengthened regulations? It is critical that we ensure that UK trade does not contribute to global deforestation, whether legal or illegal, but especially not illegal.
Turning to other amendments in the group, I am very supportive of Amendment 16, to which I have added my name. The health implications of some of the pesticides used in many of the countries party to this treaty are truly appalling. If anyone wants to go online and look up what kind of things will be coming in on fruit and veg and other products, they will find it scary. In Britain, when we were in the EU and still today, we had and have rigorous rules in place to prevent our children and ourselves having access to these pesticides, which are carcinogenic, affect fertility and do all sorts of weird and awful things. This is something that we have proudly fought for and should proudly uphold. Anything that allows stuff to sneak through under the wire has to be stopped; otherwise, it is not just a question of what it will do to our health but also completely undermines our high farming standards, which we all agree are terrific and have to be maintained.
I am also very keen that we support Amendment 18 on the assessments and procurement provisions, particularly in the Bill. That is something we should do for every trade agreement—and we should always go further and do comprehensive environmental impact assessments on detail, so that we understand our
footprint. I will be very interested to hear the Minister’s response to the amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord McNicol.
Notwithstanding the TAC’s limited resources, it has a really narrow remit and is not tasked to do this. I hope I have made clear the importance of understanding the climate and environment footprint in joining the CPTPP, as well as the health implications, which the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, will outline in a second. I look forward to hearing what plans the Government have.