"Not actually a very good deal for the UK" is how Cornish MP, the former environment minister has branded the much-touted free trade deals with Australia and New Zealand that his government negotiated.

Going further, the MP, who has a farm near Hayle, asked Labour if they would “trigger article 32.8 and renegotiate this agreement”.

He was speaking to Parliament yesterday (Tuesday) in a speech that shadow trade policy minister Gareth Thomas called a "powerful and devastating speech".

Opening the debate, trade minister Greg Hands said: “The Australia and New Zealand free trade agreements are deals that will deliver for people, businesses and our economy.

“These deals are our first from-scratch free trade agreements since we left the European Union, and they are deals that this country can be proud of. They demonstrate our ambition as an independent trading nation.”

However, George Eustice said the Australia trade deal “is not actually a very good deal for the UK”.

He warned that “unless we recognise the failures that the Department for International Trade made during the Australia negotiations, we won’t be able to learn the lessons for future negotiations”.

The first step, he said, is “to recognise that the Australia trade deal is not actually a very good deal for the UK”, adding: “It wasn’t for lack of trying on my part.

“The UK went into this negotiation holding the strongest hand, holding all of the best cards, but at some point in early summer 2021, the then trade secretary (Liz Truss) took a decision to set an arbitrary target to conclude heads of terms by the time of the G7 summit, and from that moment the UK was on the back foot repeatedly.

“In fact, at one point that then trade secretary asked her opposite number from Australia what he would need in order to be able to conclude an agreement by G7, and of course the Australian negotiator very kindly set out the Australian terms, which then shaped eventually the deal.”

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Mr Eustice said a commission that scrutinises trade deals once they are signed should be moved away from the Department for International Trade to Defra.

He went on to excoriate the Department of Trade and Industry: “I do want to make comment about personnel within the Department for International Trade, because Crawford Falconer, who is currently the interim permanent secretary, is not fit for that position, in my experience.

“His approach always was to internalise Australian demands, often when they were against UK interests, his advice was invariably to retreat and make fresh concessions and all the while he resented people who understood technical issues greater than he did.

“He has now done that job for several years. I think it would be a good opportunity for him to move on and to get a different type of negotiator in place, somebody who understands British interests better than I think he’s been able to.”

Tiverton and Honiton MP, Lib Dem Richard Foord, said: “Both of these deals will see farmers across the west country undercut as produce made to lower standards will be allowed to flow into the UK.”