My Lords, no one listening to this debate today could be in any doubt about the importance that noble Lords attach to the maintenance of the highest standards in the areas that we have been discussing. To make the Government’s position clear, we entirely concur.
I turn to the amendments, starting with Amendment 20 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. It is intended to ensure that regulations can be made under the Clause 2 power only if they adhere to UK standards of food production and safety and that partner country products are in line with our domestic health policies and policy targets.
I was grateful to my noble friend Lady Noakes for reminding us that Clause 2, to which many of the amendments that we considering today relate, relates to continuity agreements, not to new free trade agreements. As your Lordships are aware from the many debates that we have had on this issue in both this Bill and the Agriculture Bill, the UK already has extremely high import standards of food safety enshrined in domestic
law. I say again that we have no intention of lowering these; I completely reassure my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering on this point.
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The regulatory bodies named in the amendment already oversee those standards, ensuring that all imports are safe when they enter our market. The UK’s food standards agencies will continue to ensure that communities are protected from unsafe food. Imports will also need to meet the requirements of the Veterinary Medicines Directorate. Countries will continue to need to comply with these import standards after the end of the transition period, both on an FTA and MFN basis.
The effect of this amendment would, I am afraid, therefore likely simply to cause confusion among businesses as to its intent and purpose, at a time when they are preparing for the end of the transition period and, of course, are managing the impacts of Covid-19.
I turn now to Amendments 23, 24 and 25, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Grantchester, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Kramer, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering. These amendments would restore the effects of a government amendment on standards made during the passage of the previous Trade Bill. I can assure noble Lords that, although these commitments can no longer be found on the face of the Bill, they can still be found at the heart of our trade policy. During the passage of the 2017-19 Trade Bill, your Lordships had absolutely no evidence that the Government’s word would be upheld when negotiating trade agreements. Our continuity programme had yet to get off the ground, and we were not even close to launching negotiations with new partners such as the United States. In this context, of course I can understand why noble Lords sought protections in the Bill to ensure that our trade programme did not undermine standards.
But times have changed. Rather than asking your Lordships to accept a promise that Governments will maintain existing standards, I am now able to point—perhaps to the annoyance of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis—to the evidence that, of the 20 continuity agreements we have signed so far, none has weakened or diluted standards in the areas of animal welfare, environmental protections, food or employment standards, and I can assure noble Lords that we will pursue the highest standards in continuity agreements which we are yet to conclude.
The EU withdrawal Act transfers the EU comprehensive protection in these areas into UK law. Any future decisions on standards will be made in Parliament through domestic legislation, not in international trade agreements and, to reassure my noble friend Lord Trenchard, not by the European Union.
As we have noted, the UK has often led the way on the development of standards and goes significantly further than our trading partners in a number of areas. Examples were provided previously by my noble friend Lord Younger in the debate on the environment and climate change. When it comes to food safety, the Government have been very clear that agri-food imports
must adhere to our high food safety standards, both now and in the future. To take the two examples perhaps most frequently cited, chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-injected beef are both already banned from being imported into the UK. As noble Lords will know, the UK’s food standards for both domestic production and imports are enforced by the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland, which are the prescribed authorities; I hope that reassures the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. There is not a shred of evidence that the Government will be diluting standards as part of our trade agenda. It is quite the opposite; the continuity agreements that we have signed thus far, and those which we are still working towards, have maintained high standards.
I am thankful to my noble friend Lady McIntosh and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, for referring to Henry Dimbleby’s report on the national food strategy. At the suggestion of the noble Baroness, I read the interim national food strategy report with great interest over the weekend; I extend my thanks to those who contributed to its contents. The Government will publish a response to the interim report in due course but I assure my noble friend that the comments in the report relating to the importance of high standards entirely echo the Government’s own views—subject to the valuable points that my noble friend Lord Trenchard trenchantly made, of course.
Amendment 56 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, would stipulate that the UK is unable to import under an FTA any food or agricultural products that are not farmed or manufactured to the same production standards as we enforce here in the UK. My noble friend Lord Younger has already drawn your Lordships’ attention to two unintended consequences that this new clause could have. The first relates to the impact on the developing world, from which we import a huge amount of food each year. It is widely acknowledged that technical measures such as agricultural standards can impede trade, particularly for developing countries. The second unintended consequence is the disruption posed to UK customers in terms of the price and availability of foodstuffs on which we are dependent from both developed and developing countries.
When it comes to developing countries in particular, the UK imports predominantly raw food and ingredients, such as tea, cocoa and bananas, among other things. Where these imports are included in FTAs, these countries would be required to prove that they meet the UK’s domestic environmental standards, among others, before they could continue to export to the UK. Not only would this cause supply chain disruption to the UK and put businesses in developing countries at risk; it would also disincentivise developing countries from seeking new opportunities with the UK through FTAs given the burdensome requirements that this would impose on trade partners, as they would have to ensure that their legislative provisions are aligned with those of the UK.
On Amendments 67 and 74 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, the Government have given assurances—I have repeated them here today—that they are committed
to standing firm in trade negotiations and maintaining our high food safety, environment and animal welfare standards. Again, I ask your Lordships to observe our record. We have now signed 20 continuity agreements with 48 countries, replicating the terms we had with them under EU trade agreements. Imports under continuity agreements must continue to comply with our existing import standards. None of these agreements have resulted in a lowering of agricultural or other standards referenced in the amendment.
While I happily acknowledge the expertise and sincere beliefs of the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, in the light of these reassurances, I ask for his amendment to be withdrawn.