Sarah Green – 2023 Interview on the Australia Trade Deal

The interview with Sarah Green, the Liberal Democrat MP for Chesham and Amersham and also the party’s spokesperson on International Trade, on 15 January 2023.

(i) Do you believe that the Australia trade deal was negotiated too quickly and could it have been improved from the UK perspective?

The Government’s need to hurriedly chalk up trade deals meant the UK-Australia FTA was not only negotiated too quickly but also carelessly. Key stakeholders were ignored, Parliamentary scrutiny was denied and unnecessary concessions were made. As a result, we have been left with a deal that undermines our environmental and animal welfare standards and sells out British farmers.

(ii) Are you content that MPs will be able to access sufficient information about whether the trade deal is proving beneficial?

The Government have rejected calls for the publication of sectoral and regional impact assessments, denying us the opportunity to gain a detailed understanding of the deal’s real impact.

(iii) Dan Tehan, the Australia Minister of Trade at the time of signing, said that the agreement “righted the wrongs” of when the UK joined the EEC and “left Australian farmers in the cold”. If the UK were eventually to rejoin the EU or if Scotland became independent and joined, do you think that relationships with Australia would once again be negatively impacted?

The UK’s relationship with our allies is not a zero-sum game. Actually, what impacts one ally negatively often impacts another. Right now, we have a Conservative government that has threatened to break international law over the Northern Ireland Protocol. That damages not just our relations with our European allies, but also with countries like the US and Australia too.