My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baronesses, Lady Boycott and Lady Willis, since my Amendment 27 follows on neatly from the thinking behind Amendments 15 and 16, introduced so eloquently by them.
Clearly, I made a slip of the pen when I asked a Minister of the Crown within 12 months—for which read “24 months” or longer—to publish an assessment of the impact of the implementation of the CPTPP chapter on government procurement on environmental protection, animal welfare, health and hygiene. My
noble friend was very kind to take me for a cup of tea to discuss these issues on previous legislation, so he is well versed in my concerns here.
Amendment 27 is meant as a probing amendment to ensure that there are not just opportunities for fair, better trade between the CPTPP block and the UK but that we are mindful of what our consumers want and what our farmers are being asked to deliver: high food safety and high food production standards. My probing amendment seeks a commitment and a reassurance from my noble friend that those high food production standards required of UK farmers and insisted upon by British consumers are met equally in these imported products. It also asks at what point, as the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, insisted, these products imported under this Bill will be checked at the external borders.
Why is this of concern and why is it necessary? The Government’s own advisory body—the Food Standards Agency—and Food Standards Scotland go into some detail in this regard in their latest annual report, Our Food 2022. I will not rehearse exactly what the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, said, but she was very clear that there are effectively two different schemes. One is the EU, which, the report says,
“still accounts for two-thirds of all food and feed imports, and 80% of all meat and other products of animal origin”—
that must be true because it is from the FSA. It continues:
“All food and feed imported from outside the EU is subject to a series of checks to make sure it is safe. The type of checks carried out depends on the type of product and the level of risk it may pose to public, animal and plant health”.
Then, of course, there is the category of the Windsor agreement—I accept I do not fully grasp it but my noble friend will be much more familiar with it. For the purposes of this afternoon, what concerns me is what the FSA focuses on at page 49:
“Currently, all food and feed of animal origin coming from outside the EU is subject”—
only—
“to documentary checks (which confirm that appropriate documentation is supplied)”.
Therefore, we are entirely taking as read what the exporting countries are saying. The identity checks will only
“confirm that the product matches the documentation”,
and, as the noble Baroness said:
“Additional physical checks are carried out randomly on a pre-defined percentage”.
To me, that leaves a bit of risk.
The FSA and FSS go on to say:
“Overall, non-EU imports have remained largely compliant with import checks compared with”
the year before—2021—so they are saying that there is not any significant fallout. However, the FSA
“recently commissioned the food consultancy ADAS to identify measurable metrics and data sources for imported food production standards that might be used to give the public a fuller picture”.
The ADAS report highlighted three specific points, which I think are of concern this afternoon:
“A general lack of publicly available data and issues with the quality of the limited data available … A lack of measurable metrics or clear approaches to measure or monitor them”,
and
“The absence of frameworks to evaluate production standards”.
The FSA and FSS conclude:
“Although the current system of border checks gives us assurance on food safety, there is no similar system for food production standards. Being able to assess the production standards, like animal welfare or environmental standards, of imported food on a comparable basis to UK food, is essential if we as watchdogs are to be able to assess whether the food standards of the food the UK consumes has been maintained”.
That is the fundamental issue that Amendment 27 seeks to address.
I accept that the NFU regards this as a more modest and measured agreement, focusing on market access by removing trade barriers, which highlights opportunities for exporting UK products that to a high proportion have hitherto not been possible. I have not been able to find the details, but I understand that there has been an announcement of more agricultural attachés, which I applaud. The first one, which was appointed in Beijing a number of years ago, has had substantial results. We are way behind the Danes and other countries in this regard, so we are finally catching up, which is very good news indeed.
I conclude with a very simple question for my noble friend. Does he believe in his heart of hearts that there is enough in the Bill and its supplementary provisions to ensure that our consumers and our farmers, who adhere to the highest standards of food production, environmental protection and all the other things that this amendment would enhance, will not meet unfair competition from imported products from the countries that are party to this agreement?
2.15 pm