Over a year ago I wrote how the UK trade deal with Australia was coming, would be game changing and very worrying. Little did I know that the deal would be sealed by canny Australian negotiators transcribing Boris Johnson’s rash promises onto napkins.
We have heard how, at a Number 10 dinner with Australian PM Scott Morrison, UK PM Johnson verbally agreed a deal on beef imports based on product weight, not carcass weight equivalence – allowing many thousands more tonnes of Australian beef into the UK than British officials had considered appropriate. As he spoke, the Australians scribbled it all down on a bit of paper and during a loo break, rapidly turned it into a formal trade document which was then signed by Johnson. AT THE SAME DINNER.
The then trade secretary Liz Truss was apparently annoyed, as was the Defra secretary George Eustice who knew what this meant for UK farming and the environment. He has since, as a backbencher, described just how farming has been let down saying the UK “gave away far too much for far too little in return” and the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) said “there is little in this deal to benefit British farmers”.
Now the Australia deal has come into force, maybe we are all just a bit more furious after the dinner revelations, more worried and asking is it really worth the 0.08% of GDP the deal may, or may not, deliver.
What this means for our green and pressured land
Sustain alliance members and many others campaigned long and hard for better trade policy to guarantee people in the UK can enjoy a supply of food that is safe, affordable and good for our health, animal welfare and the environment. We also want to be sure that farmers and food producers at home and abroad can make a decent living. It’s the bare minimum we should get.
We know that by offering a zero-tariff, zero-quota deal on beef, sheep meat and sugar we will be undercutting our farmers, putting not only their livelihoods at risk but also endangering plans to reward farmers for delivering public goods such as improving soil health and reversing nature loss. The ‘product-specific safeguards’ that were later introduced – restricting the amount of meat that can be imported for ten years are not going to help much – just eking out the misery a bit. Already there are concerns at the sheer quantity of beef being produced for export from Australia.
Many Australian farmers are undoubtedly great, but they are permitted to produce food to lower animal welfare, health and environmental standards and can do so at scale and cheaply. UK farmers have made it clear they will not be able to compete with low-standard produce and deliver environmental improvements at the same time. The government’s own data showed the deal would be bad for our agriculture, forestry and fishing; semi-processed foods. Their trade and agriculture commission also found there was likely to be an increase in Australian imports produced using pesticides that would not be permitted in the UK. Our Toxic Trade report detailed the pesticide risks which are significant.
The UK farming community was and is furious and maybe that led to some local electoral defeats in rural heartlands? Hard to say what tipped them over. Minette Batters, NFU head noted “The anger is still visceral” over the deal.
A backward step for health and the climate
Concessions were also made to Australia, which has such a poor climate record – removing climate commitments from the text in favour of more general references. This marks a backward step for tackling climate change and reveals a real lack of leadership for the COP26. The gold standard for trade deals would be to formally ensure that they are subordinate to climate agreements. Beef production is the leading cause of deforestation and land clearing in Australia – leading to greenhouse gas emissions, loss of a critical carbon store as well as biodiversity.
Public health too is at risk. With potentially more sugar, higher pesticide residues or produced using antibiotics banned as growth promoters in the UK, we should have had a comprehensive health impact assessment on the deal that parliamentarians would see before ratifying it. We didn’t.
Antibiotic use per animal in Australian pigs it is nearly three times higher than in the UK and in cattle over 16 times more. Australian grapes can contain 6,000 times the amount of the fungicide iprodione than UK grapes. Iprodione is linked to cancer and is a suspected endocrine disrupter, which means it is capable of interfering with hormone systems and can lead to birth defects and developmental disorders.
Will better trade policy and scrutiny prevail?
Do we really need to create such problems for ourselves? With other deals being finalised – such as the Trans-Pacific partnership (CPTPP) – we must surely say no.
The environment, food and rural affairs select committee tried to scrutinise the Australia deal last year and has just launched an inquiry into the UK’s trade deals. These are the first deals we have negotiated by ourselves in 40 years, and if Johnson’s dinner napkin debacle is anything to go by, we need to get a lot better at it. Part of that is the need for ongoing, well informed and effective parliamentary scrutiny. And we need basic core standards on food, environment and animal health and welfare to underpin any future deals.
