Free Trade Agreement Negotiations: Australia

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I fear we already know the answer to whether they believe in Britain or not. This deal will go through the proper parliamentary scrutiny process, through the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 process, as all international treaties do. I concur with my hon. Friend that the idea that Britain’s future should be in closing ourselves off to the rest of the world—in putting up high-tariff barriers, not innovating, not learning and not sharing ideas—is the recipe for penury, not the recipe for success.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

My constituency overwhelmingly rejected Brexit, because we knew what it would do to our farming and fishing industry. Is the Secretary of State concerned that the Australian farmers are hailing this as a huge victory, while Scottish farmers see it as a complete betrayal? Will she therefore explain to the hill farming communities in my constituency how flooding the UK market with cheap, factory-farmed, inferior produced meat is the golden opportunity that the Prime Minister promised that this deal would be?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I think the hon. Gentleman’s farmers deserve better than the ludicrous scaremongering that he has been putting forward.