Eustice, who led the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs between 2020 and 2022, said the UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement, signed in December 2021, “gave too much for too little in return”. The deal was seen as the first “from scratch” deal since the UK left the EU in 2016 and was hailed as a “landmark moment” by the then international trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan last year. The deal’s proposals included lifting tariffs on UK exports, which the government said would unlock £10.4bn of additional trade and widen access to labor markets by lifting some visa requirements. The agreement was also presented as a gateway for the UK to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). However, speaking in a parliamentary debate on the Australia-New Zealand trade deals in the House of Commons, Eustice – now a support MP – argued that while there were some positive aspects of the deal, such as the “special agricultural safeguard for years 10 to 15”, overall the agreement did not benefit the UK. “Unless we acknowledge the failures that the Department for International Trade made during the negotiations in Australia, we will not be able to learn the lessons of future negotiations,” Eustice told MPs. Eustice has been heavily critical of former prime minister Liz Truss, who served as trade secretary between 2019 and 2021, arguing that her desire to set “arbitrary targets” put the UK in a worse negotiating position. “The UK came into this negotiation holding the strongest hand, holding all the best cards, but sometime in the early summer of 2021, the then trade secretary [Truss] decided to set an arbitrary target to complete terms by the G7 summit [held that year in Cornwall]and since that time the UK has been at the back repeatedly,” he said. “In fact, at one point the then trade minister asked her Australian counterpart what it would take to be able to do a deal with the G7 and of course the Australian negotiator politely laid out the Australian terms, which then ultimately shaped the deal.” . Eustice also argued that Crawford Falconer, the interim permanent secretary of the Department for International Trade, was “not fit for the job”. “His approach has always been to internalize Australian demands, often when they were against UK interests. His advice was always to back down and make new concessions and all the while he resented people who understood the technicalities better than he did,” said the Camborne and Redruth rural MP. The UK farming sector has repeatedly warned that the deal will have a negative impact on farmers. Commenting in December 2021, Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers Union, described the deal as “one-sided,” adding that it would increase pressure on farmers already facing inflation and labor shortages. The department for international trade claimed on Monday night that the deal with Australia would unlock an extra £10.4bn of bilateral trade, support economic growth in every part of the UK and deliver for 15,300 businesses that already export goods to Australia . “We have always said we will not compromise the UK’s high environmental, animal welfare or food safety standards and the deal includes a number of safeguards to support British farmers,” added a spokesman. Nick Thomas-Symonds, Labour’s shadow international trade secretary, said after Eustice’s attack on the Australian deal that the government’s trade policy was in total disarray. “Even George Eustice, a cabinet member when Australia’s trade deal was negotiated, has now agreed that ‘the UK gave too much for too little in return’.” “On trade, the Conservatives have no strategy and are – badly – ​​letting the UK down, which will cost jobs, investment and growth.” Recommended Meanwhile, Michael Saunders, a former external member of the Bank of England’s rate-setting monetary policy committee, warned that the entire UK economy has been “permanently damaged by Brexit”. In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Sanders argued that leaving the EU had “significantly” reduced Britain’s potential output as well as eroding business investment. “If we hadn’t had Brexit, we probably wouldn’t be talking about an austerity budget this week,” he said. “The need for tax increases and spending cuts would not exist if Brexit had not reduced the economy’s potential output so much.”