Trade Bill

Debate between Baroness Henig and Baroness Boycott

Consideration of Commons amendments & Ping Pong (Hansard) & Ping Pong (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boycott (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who is such a champion. I think her words will have moved people a great deal. I shall speak to Amendments H and J, which are to do with public health, an issue that I feel has been kicked from pillar to post over the last few months. I hope it has not slid entirely down the agenda and I was encouraged by the Minister’s words, but I would like to make a few points and ask a few questions.

I remind people about where we are right now. We have just passed the grim milestone of 100,000 deaths from Covid. One of the main reasons why that death toll is so high is that we have extremely poor public health. The NHS has identified clinical vulnerability to Covid as obesity and being overweight, which affects 28% of our population. Another key morbidity is diabetes. At the start of 2020, just a year ago, 3.9 million people had that diagnosis—that is up 100,000 a year. The causes of it are primarily, indeed almost exclusively, poor diet. Our NHS is spending £6 billion a year treating diet-related disease.

Yet, at a press conference to launch the trade negotiations with Australia, the Prime Minister extolled the benefits of the deal, saying that we could get more, cheaper chocolate Tim Tams—those rather irresistible chocolate biscuits that are like our Penguins. Just last week, the UK’s International Trade Secretary, Liz Truss, said she intended to cut what she called the “Tim Tam tax”, referring to the tariffs on these same Australian biscuits. Although we have notified the WTO of plans to introduce limits on the promotion of unhealthy food in England, this policy could be seen by trading partners as a barrier to trade and thus be removed. We will have to wait and see.

How are we going to monitor public health? The Minister referred to the fact that this issue began to be discussed during consideration of the Agriculture Bill and I agree, there was a lot of discussion about it. The views of the public were well known at that point, and 2.6 million—that is a lot of people—signed petitions calling for our standards to be protected in law. The Government opted instead to introduce the Trade and Agriculture Commission. Section 42 of the Act committed to reports being put before Parliament explaining how free trade agreements impact on, at this point,

“human, animal or plant life or health, animal welfare, and the environment.”

In previous debates we called for a public health representative to be included in the TAC. We sent an amendment to the Commons for consideration; it was rejected. Ministers say that public health is so important that reports on the impact of trade deals on public health will therefore be presented to Parliament alongside any other FTAs, and that this will not be the responsibility of the TAC as it would overburden the organisation. So, where is it going to go?

The plan is obviously for it to end up in the Food Standards Agency, which is an excellent organisation. It is an independent government department, working to protect public health and consumers’ wider interests in relation to food in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland—note, not Scotland. Its mission is to have “food we can trust.” If we have this independent department charged with looking after public health, why have Ministers not been more upfront about it? If you look at that little story of how public health has been taken from one place to another, I think many people would be forgiven for thinking that it was not really very high on the Government’s agenda.

I would like to know tonight from the Minister exactly how this is going to work. How is the FSA going to be staffed? Its funding is down: from £114 million in 2011 to £98 million now. It currently employs 1,718 staff—again, down from the 2011 figure of 1,950. How exactly is this going to work? What will be its relationship to the TAC? How exactly is it going to put things in front of Parliament and, crucially, how does this work with Scotland?

I will reiterate a point I have made before, and which is really the big thing I am trying to say. It is no good focusing just on food safety. We need to consider what kills us slowly, as well as what kills us quickly. The Food Standards Agency has explained its role in regulating novel products and that it will consider safety, but also always the consumer interest. Will this cover public health issues such as the degradation of antibiotics through overuse in farming on imports, increases in pesticide residues, or possibly even the re-introduction of banned pesticides? What powers might it have to advise on the impact of trade policies that sweep away tariffs on the very high fat sugar and salt products—HFSS—that we are trying to limit the promotion of? Indeed, the Government, the Prime Minister and the obesity plan are all attempting to tackle this.

Once again, public health is slithering down. At this extraordinary time in our nation’s history, when we have seen the devastating impacts of an unhealthy nation and how much misery and sadness that can lead to, this ought to be an extremely important issue. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

The following Members in the Chamber have indicated that they wish to speak: the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg. I call the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy.