![]() ![]() #Compassion radio international freeHe said: “It is deeply disappointing that our government is refusing to take advantage of the election of a new Australian government to strengthen the extremely weak climate provisions of the UK-Australia free trade agreement. Lord Oates, the Liberal Democrat peer and former chief of staff to Nick Clegg, said the government should look to rewrite the deal now that Australia had a new government committed to strong action on the climate crisis. The deal was struck under the previous Australian government, which took a strongly climate-sceptic view and often dismissed environmental concerns. She pointed to a petition in 2020 signed by more than 2 million people calling for food standards to be protected in trade deals. Australia uses many more highly hazardous pesticides than the UK, many of which are banned here on health and environmental grounds. The government’s own advisers conceded that overuse of pesticides in Australia would give their farmers a competitive advantage over the UK’s. Lady Rosie Boycott, the cross-bench peer who served as “food tsar” for London under Boris Johnson when he was mayor, added: “Australia has an abysmal record on deforestation, animal welfare and climate. But it appears this will get waved through with no debate.” “MPs should have an opportunity to question ministers and scrutinise this trade agreement before it is signed to ask what the benefits of this deal will be to the UK. ![]() This deal is clearly an asymmetrical agreement as it is more advantageous to the Australian farmers than our own. We may well face a social crisis in our rural communities if we do not look after the uplands and our hill farmers. “UK farmers face rising energy costs, higher fuel prices and an acute shortage of labour, especially of seasonal farm workers, which means many of them are going to struggle. The government has not brought forward a trade strategy, the trade and agriculture commission can only advise after it has been signed, and the parliamentary scrutiny arrangements have been very weak. Lady McIntosh of Pickering, the Tory peer who as Anne McIntosh MP chaired the influential environmental, food and rural affairs select committee in parliament, said: “This is the UK’s first new post-Brexit trade deal, and the process by which it is passing through parliament is inadequate. Several peers told the Guardian they were worried the deal was being rushed through. Research for green groups also shows that the trade deal could have a severe effect on deforestation in Australia, by encouraging more land to be turned to ranching and to grain production for herds. Under the Australian trade deal, the UK could be opened up to Australian beef and other farm products that are subject to lower standards, including on the use of antibiotics on livestock and of harmful pesticides, than are legal in the UK. Their complaint could also have an impact on future trade deals, as the government could be told it must include more input from the UK public in future deals. ![]() The green groups – including WWF, Sustain, Green Alliance, Compassion in World Farming, the Soil Association, the Trade Justice Movement and the Tenant Farmers’ Association – have taken the legal action under the Aarhus convention, an international agreement that requires public consultation on decisions by the government or public sector that have an impact on the environment. Opposition is also building within the House of Lords, with several peers telling the Guardian of their reservations that the trade deal could pass while the government is under a caretaker prime minister and parliament in the grips of the Conservative leadership contest. ![]()
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