The International Trade Selection Committee in parliament has called for a vote on the agreement, which would result in food produced under British domestic environmental standards being sold in the UK. SNP MP Angus MacNeil, who chairs the committee, said there was a risk that the deal would be hastily concluded without parliamentary scrutiny and that it was tantamount to using “off-site” pesticides. He told the Guardian: “There has been no democratic contribution to the debate so far and there will be pressure on members of the government just to push it forward by the end of the month. We asked for the approval time to be extended, for the parliament to give us 21 additional days of sitting in order for the Members to assimilate the report before ratification. “As it stands, the United Kingdom could ratify this agreement without any parliamentary vote.” He called for a vote in parliament because “it is one of the most liberal agreements we have ever seen on agricultural standards”. This week, International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan missed a meeting of the trade committee after lawmakers accused her department of refusing to consider the issue. “We had a fight yesterday,” MacNeil said. “The result we had this week is that the foreign minister did not even appear at the committee meeting.” The Ministry of International Trade said at the time that Trevelyan had left because she was busy with other commitments. MacNeil said the deal was too liberal for pesticides. “Pesticide limits in Australia are 200 times higher than in the United Kingdom. They also have 144 approved pesticides, while the United Kingdom licenses only 73 of these substances. The environmental movement is talking about coal mining. “You could say that what we are doing is extracting pesticides.” Subscribe to the First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7 p.m. BST Josie Cohen, head of policy and campaigning at Pesticide Action UK, said: “Australia is using toxic pesticides that are banned here for health and environmental reasons. They also allow residual levels many times higher than in the UK. Government advisers themselves have acknowledged that overuse of pesticides in Australia will put our farmers at a disadvantage, but argue that existing border controls will keep out foods with high pesticide residues. “However, there is reason to believe that UK border controls on food are not as strong as the government claims. “Government ministers should not shy away from parliamentary committees with reasonable questions – mainly, what will the government do to keep consumers safe and why are they violating their own manifesto commitment to uphold standards in trade agreements?” Orla Delargy, head of public affairs at the charity Sustain, said: “The government seems to be trying to speed up the UK-Australia agreement without giving parliament a chance to look at it properly. The government has not yet responded to the advice of its own advisers that our concerns about pesticides on Australian products are valid and that food standard services have not considered the potential impact on public health, which seems like a huge overlook. “Ministers have questions to answer about all this – and parliament should not just let them get away.” Contact the Ministry of International Trade for comments.
