Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Deidre Brock and Anne-Marie Trevelyan(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
I was interested to learn from the Minister about the close relationship that Department for International Trade officials apparently enjoy with the Scottish Government—something that I suspect will be news to Scottish Ministers.
The Lords report on the Australia-UK trade deal criticised the fact that, despite the heavy impact of the deal on the food and drink sectors in the devolved nations, those nations have been shut out of negotiating the terms of that deal and no doubt future ones. Will the devolved nations be consulted from the outset and throughout negotiations during future trade deals, and will Ministers make Parliament aware of their views?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
We have regular and ongoing discussions and a good relationship with all the devolved Administrations, but of course the trade policy programme is reserved to the UK.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Deidre Brock and Anne-Marie Trevelyan(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The Minister for Trade Policy answered a point of order yesterday setting out the detail of the communications. We always try to ensure that we are able to provide the information in as timely a manner as we can. I am looking forward to my opportunity to discuss the Australian and New Zealand trade deals in more detail with the International Trade Committee—I think it is already in the diary—and I know that it will hold me to account 100 % when I get there.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
A £150 million hit to fishing, forestry, agriculture and food manufacturing from the New Zealand trade deal was described in this Government’s impact assessment as nothing more than a “process of economic adjustment” and just a
“reallocation of resources within the economy”.
This again exposes the Government’s shock-doctrine, libertarian approach to free trade and the economy. Can the Secretary of State tell us whether she is content for those sectors to just go down with the Brexit ship?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The New Zealand free trade agreement will see bilateral trade increase by almost 60%, which we expect to boost the UK economy by nearly £1 billion in the next few years and to increase wages across the UK. Red tape will be slashed for nearly 6,000 UK small and medium-sized enterprises, with nearly 250,000 people working in those supply chains. UK exporters will no longer pay tariffs on a huge range of foods, and they will now have an advantage over international rivals.
It is exciting that we will be able to offer new opportunities for our smaller businesses to discover and grow into the New Zealand market. Indeed, we will be working very closely with our New Zealand partners as we look to accede to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership later this year, which will open up enormous new markets for all our exporters across every field of opportunity.
Free Trade Agreement: New Zealand
Debate between Deidre Brock and Anne-Marie Trevelyan(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I think many of us will be excited at the reduced price, potentially, of our glass of New Zealand wine of an evening. This goes in both directions. We will want to champion the opportunities for small businesses across our constituencies, and the Department is there to support and guide. We now have not only trade and investment hubs here in the UK but both trade commissioners and great trade envoys. I know that they will help us to champion the great businesses we have here to ensure that they are known and loved, and become part of the landscape of New Zealand’s markets.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The National Farmers Union of Scotland has just released a statement expressing great anger over this latest trade deal, describing it as
“merely a slow journey to allow New Zealand…unfettered access to food and drink UK markets.”
The Government keep saying that high food and environmental standards in the UK will continue for UK-produced goods, apparently failing to recognise, if I am being generous, that farmers will be forced to reduce those standards when they are competing against tariff-free goods produced to lower standards in countries such as Australia, New Zealand and, as those trade deals have set a precedent, all the other countries to follow. The National Farmers Union of Scotland sees that very clearly. Will the Secretary of State at least acknowledge its concerns and recognise that as a possibility?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The UK has some of the finest standards in the world, and indeed some of the finest produce, which is exported with great success across the world. As our landmark Environment Bill comes through and work continues to set out the new frameworks to support our farming communities since we have left the common agricultural policy, we will be working hand in glove with all our farming communities to ensure that they have the support and the drive to be successful 21st century farming businesses that are able to take up the opportunities that all the free trade deals—not only those with Australia and New Zealand but all those to come—will bring to take their great products into markets across the world.
Agriculture Bill
Debate between Deidre Brock and Anne-Marie Trevelyan(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
As a rural Northumbrian for more than 20 years, I have been closely involved with the trials and tribulations of the local farmers and land managers, whose livelihood is determined by the health of our rural economy. It is a physically hard life, and the Northumbrian weather—perhaps even more dramatic than that in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax)—is a constant companion, with financial rewards sometimes feeling scarce.
The understanding of taxpayer support for farming is a fundamental underpinning of our food supply system, and it is a support that taxpayers buy into, as long as it reaches its intended target and meets its stated aims. The EU’s common agricultural policy did not do that. The voice of UK farmers has too often been drowned out by the demands of French or Spanish farmers. We have been stuck in a system not aimed at investing in the best land use in Northumberland or anywhere else across our islands.
With our departure from the EU and this Bill, we can stop the EU CAP funding bias against our own farming communities and put our own more effective and targeted land-management choices first. This reflects the optimistic outlook that Brexit brings—despite the depression on the Opposition Benches that has positively brought me down to earth—about the fact that we can and should determine our own land-management policy.
At a local level, my caseworker Jen spends a great deal of her time dealing with concerned farmers who have yet to receive last year’s payment, or are wondering whether this year’s will ever materialise. Mapping disagreements, disputes over hedge lines, common land use and cross-border issues with the Scots—not helped by the SNP’s current position—are just some of the challenges that the EU-based system, and perhaps historically our own delivery teams in Whitehall, have thrown up, causing months of financial and emotional challenges for Northumbrian farmers.
In addition to the funding disparity with other EU nations, years of working with our upland farmers in Northumberland has brought to my attention too many stories of wasted time and energy that could be better directed. One of the biggest gripes, as the Minister well knows, is the multiple visits by officials to ensure that EU rules are being followed, each visit adding stress and taking time, when one visit could cover all the issues—like an Ofsted visit, perhaps. Farmers would face one short window of pain, but would then be trusted, left alone to get on with their job. The vast majority of our farmers want to look after the land they are stewarding.
The undue pressures placed on our rural communities have always worried me. Farmers have been asking for help to ease the burden for years, but until now there was nothing we could do. That is why the Bill is so exciting: we will at last be able to create management and financial incentives to suit our needs and this Government’s long-term commitment to looking after our whole environment. We will be designing a system that does not funnel funds to our farmers’ foreign competitors, but frees up our land stewards to innovate; a system that supports a holistic perspective of land management, which puts long-term soil health, food production and water basin management with tree planting; and a system that incentivises long-term investment for public and economic good—the two are not mutually exclusive. Most important, public good is not an empty phrase: it means that we can join up long-term urban and rural health and security needs with the way we use our land—for everyone.
The Bill is based on inherent fairness, whereby farmers are rewarded for what they do and produce, rather than for the size of their landholding. Crucially, it offers rewards for those already working hard to improve the environment and to ensure that their methods of production are sustainable. That will begin to drive change for good across the countryside.
As the MP for one of the most sparsely populated constituencies—albeit the most beautiful, and I will take on anyone who wants to fight me on that—I am pleased that is not just farmers who grow food who will benefit from the new system. I have spoken many times about trees, and this debate offers an opportunity to do so again. As the Minister is aware, I believe we need to be planting at least one tree for every citizen, not one for every five, but the target of 11 million needs at least to be met to allow the long-term thinking we need for land management and water basin stabilisation, to support the timber industry’s needs and to reduce long-term reliance on imports for biomass, for housing frames and for furniture. We must aim to be able to become self-sustaining in timber.
Mrs Trevelyan
I will not. Timber absorbs carbon dioxide as it grows and then holds that carbon a second time as wood products. I ask the Minister to consider, as part of the Borderlands initiative, planting a borderlands forest as part of our meeting our tree-planting targets—not so much a wall dividing us from our Scottish colleagues, but a biodiverse habitat that the English and the Scots can nurture together.