Early evening summary
George Eustice, the former environment secretary, has said the UK “gave away far too much for far too little in return” in its free trade deal with Australia, which he had to defend when he was in government. In a Commons debate, Eustice also blamed Liz Truss, international trade secretary when negotiations opened, for the fact that the UK gave too much away. (See 6.03pm.)
Updated
UK gave away 'far too much for far too little' in free trade deal with Australia, says George Eustice, blaming Liz Truss
George Eustice, the former environment secretary, has told MPs that the Commons that the free trade deal with Australia – hailed by Boris Johnson’s government as one of the big trade gains from Brexit – was a poor deal for the UK.
Eustice, who was an enthusiastic Brexiter and was environment secretary while the deal was being negotiated, said the UK “gave away far too much for far too little in return”.
Speaking in a Commons debate on trade deals with Australia and New Zealand, Eustice, who was sacked by Liz Truss (international trade secretary when negotiations with Australia on the deal opened), said:
The first step is to recognise that the Australia trade deal is not actually a very good deal for the UK. It wasn’t for lack of trying on my part. Indeed, there were things that we achieved: a special agricultural safeguard for years 10 to 15, staged liberalisation across the first decade, the protection of British sovereignty in SPS [sanitary and phytosanitary] issues.
It’s no surprise that many of these areas were areas negotiated either exclusively or predominantly by Defra on behalf of the UK team.
But it has to be said that, overall the truth of the matter is that the UK gave away far too much for far too little in return.
Eustice said the UK gave too many concessions to Australian farmers. He said it was not necessary for the UK to give Australia (and New Zealand, in its deal) full liberalisation for beef and sheep, and he said “neither Australia nor New Zealand had anything to offer in return for such a grand concession”.
Eustice blamed Truss for what went wrong. He said:
The UK went into this negotiation holding the strongest hand, holding all of the best cards, but at some point in early summer 2021, the then trade secretary [Truss] took a decision to set an arbitrary target to conclude heads of terms by the time of the G7 summit, and from that moment the UK was on the back foot repeatedly.
In fact, at one point the then trade secretary asked her opposite number from Australia what he would need in order to be able to conclude an agreement by G7, and of course the Australian negotiator very kindly set out the Australian terms, which then shaped eventually the deal.
Eustice said that, as a backbencher, he no longer felt obliged to put a “positive gloss” on what was achieved. He went on:
Unless we recognise the failures that the Department for International Trade made during the Australia negotiations, we won’t be able to learn the lessons of future negotiations.
He also said that, if necessary, the UK should be prepared to spend a decade negotiating joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). The government should never again “put ourselves in such a position of setting the clock against us and shattering our own negotiating position”, he said.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan was international trade secretary when the deal was signed in December last year. At the time she said the deal was “just the start as we get on the front foot and seize the seismic opportunities that await us on the world stage”.
Updated
