Oral Answers to Questions

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) is a huge champion of Scottish farming and the Scotch whisky industry, and I am working extremely closely with him. I am also working very closely with NFU Scotland, and it is involved in the Trade and Agriculture Commission. The fundamental principle of our trade policy is that we will not allow our fantastic farmers, whether in Scotland, Wales, Wales or Northern Ireland, and their great produce to be undermined. What we want them to be doing is exporting more around the world.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

During the passage of the Trade Bill, farmers via the NFU and others, including doctors via the British Medical Association, expressed deep concerns that food standards in future trade deals could be under threat, allowing in, for example, vegetables from the US, where 72 chemicals are allowed that are currently banned in the UK. Given that the Government refused to legislate in the Trade Bill to stop the lowering of standards, how will the Secretary of State respond in her engagement with farmers to ensure that that will not happen in future?

[Elizabeth Truss]

In the EU withdrawal Act, all the import standards that we had as part of the EU have been transposed into UK law. Those import standards remain, and we will not be negotiating them away in any trade agreement. Furthermore, we have the Trade and Agriculture Commission, which is specifically involving organisations such as NFU Scotland, to ensure that British farmers get a fair deal and British consumers have products that they can have confidence in.

[Stewart Hosie]

All that answer confirms is that there are no legislative protections in the Trade Bill and that MPs will have no say in any future trade deal except for potentially a “take it or leave it” choice after the negotiations are concluded. Given that Which? tells us that 95% of the public want to maintain current food standards, why do this Government continue to rule out real legislative protections in a trade Bill that would accord with the views of our farmers, our doctors and the general public?

[Elizabeth Truss]

These standards, such as the ban on chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef, are already in UK law as part of the EU withdrawal Act. I have been explicit: it is not a matter for trade policy; it is a matter for our domestic law what standards we have in this country, and we are not trading it away, so it should not be part of any trade Bill. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) speaks from a sedentary position. I do not think that it is the Government’s job to legislate twice for things that are already in legislation.