Trade deals need bite, say peers

■ Fears that farmers may go to wall if scrutiny isn’t beefed up post- Brexit Government Bill back in Commons with amendments following defeat

YORKSHIRE peers have called for a commission set up to scrutinise trade bills on food standards to have more teeth – or risk traditional family farms going to the wall.

The House of Lords passed the Agriculture Bill on Thursday, taking a further step towards embedding new arrangements for the sector after Brexit.

But the legislation returns to the Commons with amendments attached after peers heavily defeated the Government in a crossparty move to guarantee high food standards post- Brexit.

The House of Lords backed calls for a strengthened Trade and Agriculture Commission ( TAC) which would be able to veto trade agreements that threaten to undercut British farmers by allowing poorer quality and therefore cheaper food into the UK market.

Conservative peer Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate said the issue with the TAC currently was it was “time- limited”, and he wanted it to be made permanent, and given powers to scrutinise any future trade deals, as well as Parliament having a role.

“We need to have some vehicle in place that is going to examine all future trade agreements that the Government might come up with post- Brexit, just to make sure that all those agreements maintain – in terms of any food that might come into the country, or in terms of animal welfare – quality and standards that we’ve been used to in this country.

“The commission, we think, should then be in a position on a permanent basis to comment ahead of any trade agreement being finalised, and that is subject to parliamentary approval as well. From our farmers’ point of view, they have invested a lot of money in improving standards because the European Union, under the Common Agricultural Policy, has actually insisted on standards being improved.

“What I think a lot of people are worried about is if there isn’t any kind of commission, looking at trade agreements or draft ones, that actually any food that comes into this country isn’t the same quality as our own produced, then our farmers and our food producers are going to be disadvantaged enormously.”

Former Yorkshire MP and now peer Baroness McIntosh said a new commission, with a slightly different remit, should be established.

“The Government is absolutely right to maintain our high standards, but the bottom line is that we must ensure that imports of agricultural products meet the same standards. Otherwise, there is no fair competition,” she said.

“It is quite possible that particularly some of the smaller farms, some of the uplands and hill farms will go to the wall, will go out of business.”

The Tory peer said she knew “for a fact that is possible” because she had seen the results of the UK 1999 sow stall ban, which resulted in farmers being undercut by cheaper EU imports produced using stalls.

“It was a complete own goal and it put 50 per cent of our pig farmers out of production,” she added.

“I want to maintain the level of production we see in the hill and upland areas, particularly less favoured areas, you know, where they’re battling not just the elements, but the soil and everything as well. I want to show that we have a vibrant farming business, in the hills across the North, but particularly in North Yorkshire for years to come.

“And I see that there is a direct threat from what the Government is proposing.”