Lord Lilley (Con)

My Lords, I welcome this agreement —another Brexit dividend. Knowing the Government’s dedication to international law, I am sure they regret that this deal rewards the flagrant violation of WTO rules by Trump’s imposition of discriminatory tariffs. I accept that they had little option but to ignore that violation, but why are they now proposing to reward the EU for its flagrant flouting of rules on SPS checks? The WTO rules are quite clear: “Sanitary and phytosanitary measures shall not be applied in a manner which would constitute a disguised restriction on international trade”, which is what is happening at present. They go on to say: “Members shall accept the sanitary or phytosanitary measures of other Members as equivalent, even if these measures differ from their own”. Our rules do not differ; they are identical. There is no legal case for checks at the border on our exports of food and goods to Europe. Why are the Government proposing to make concessions which are in any case unnecessary? They claim it would reduce the cost of food imports from Europe, but we can unilaterally not impose checks on those food imports, as we have done for three of the last four years.