Oral Answers to Questions

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2025 Commons Chamber

The Minister for the Cabinet Office was asked—

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

1. What his Department’s priorities are in negotiations with the EU on a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Ward)]

As you are aware, Mr Speaker, the Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office is at a funeral today and is therefore unable to attend this session, so he has asked me to reply on his behalf.

This Government are determined to deliver a closer relationship with the EU. As part of that, we are negotiating a bold SPS agreement, the potential benefits of which are huge: reducing unnecessary checks at the border, cutting costs for businesses of around £200 per shipment and, in the long run, boosting the UK economy by around £5 billion a year. We have started negotiations and hope to have them concluded by early 2027. This is just one example of this Government filling in the holes left by the Conservatives.

[Mr Carmichael]

I am sure we all understand the reasons for the Paymaster General’s absence today, although I am less clear on his reasons for being absent from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee next Tuesday; he has declined our invitation to attend. A bold deal is indeed something to be wished for, but only if it does not bring with it lots of unintended consequences for the farmers, food producers, chemical companies and others whose work will be impacted by it. If Ministers will not engage with the Committee, will the Minister give me some assurance that there will at least be engagement with those vital industry interests?

[Chris Ward]

I understand that the Minister for the Cabinet Office has offered to meet directly with the right hon. Gentleman, the Chair of the Committee, on this—he will get back to the Committee. We will obviously be engaging on this matter and showing scrutiny across Parliament as much as possible. This is an incredibly important part of the deal. As I say, the benefits of the agreement are potentially very important; it will be of real benefit to farmers and other communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Ward]

Small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of our economy, and we are looking at reforming procurement rules to do everything we can to make sure that the £400 billion a year we spend on this does everything possible to help small businesses. We consulted in the summer, including on late payments and reforming social value, and we are going to bring forward a package of reforms shortly on this.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

T4. May I take the Security Minister back to the subject of the security of undersea cables? He may know that in Shetland we have had two catastrophic breakages this year as a result of fishing boats breaking the cables. It has now become clear that there is no basic sharing of information between the Government and cable companies, and the cable company in that case had to submit a freedom of information request to get VMS—vessel monitoring system—data. Surely we can do better than that.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Dan Jarvis)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising this issue. I will look carefully at what he has said and will be happy to meet to discuss it further.