Joe Morris

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. Before I start, I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) on the media’s conduct in the referendum. I will touch briefly on the issue of music. I was speaking recently to an orchestra member who is active in my local party over the weekend about the issues that he has experienced with touring, and to a local venue operator who used to welcome musicians from Europe to Northumberland. It supported our tourism sector and supported the exchange of ideas. It enhanced opportunities for young people to see the world beyond the north-east. It is a crying shame that we have lost not just the ability for our musicians to go abroad, but the ability to welcome people into our areas to play in some of the iconic venues of the north-east. Given the time allowed, I will focus my remarks on trade deals and the way that the agricultural community has been treated in those trade deals—in particular, the impact of leaving the EU and the now complete absence of scrutiny of those deals. We no longer have any appropriate democratic input into how those terms of reference are agreed and how civil society can properly feed into them. When we were a member of the European Parliament, we at least had a methodology, however imperfect, for agreeing those terms of reference, bringing them forward and making sure that farmers had a seat at the table when those trade deals were being agreed. Given how the Australian and New Zealand trade deals disadvantaged sheep farmers in my constituency, had there been a meaningful vote or meaningful parliamentary consultation, there is no way that the former MP for my constituency could have voted for that deal with a clean conscience. It is to his shame that he never raised his voice in opposition to it. I also want to touch on the issue of trade movements, referred to in the introductory speech by the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart). I thank him for securing the debate and apologise for forgetting to do so earlier. When the EU brings in bans on products, there is a real risk that those goods are then immediately diverted into the UK because we do not have consistency of policy. I have heard that from manufacturers in my constituency who make furniture: they see lower-quality wood products from China coming in that were originally destined for the EU but, because of a policy shift from the EU, have then been redirected en route into the UK market, with the consistent risk of decimating jobs. Constituency MPs then have to run to Ministers and ask for exemptions and for us to catch up to Europe. We must ensure that we have consistency of approach, not just to safeguard jobs, but to grow economies and give business the impetus and confidence to invest in the long term. This is a shorter speech than I intended to give, but I would be grateful if the Minister could come back on those two points about scrutiny and consistency of application of trade protection measures.