I know that there has been a great deal of concern from constituents about the need to protect our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards in future trade deals so I am delighted that the government is extending the Trade and Agriculture Commission (TAC), and placing it on a full statutory footing in the Trade Bill, giving farmers a stronger voice in UK trade policy. The government has also tabled an amendment to the Agriculture Bill, to bolster parliamentary scrutiny of free trade deals.
The Commission was initially launched for a six-month period in July to bring together voices from across the sector and report back to inform top-level trade policy and negotiations. Since then it has heard from dozens of experts on farming, animal welfare, the environment and trade, called for evidence from hundreds of key voices across the industry, as well as engaging local farmers, producers, businesses and MPs across the UK through a series of virtual regional roadshows. As Britain prepares to put into statute the trade deal struck with Japan and moves closer to becoming a fully-fledged trading nation, the Government has decided to extend the Commission past its previous fixed term and give it a more active role through a new legislative underpinning, to be reviewed every three years.
It will produce a report on the impact on animal welfare and agriculture of each new free trade deal the government signs after the end of the EU transition period on 1 January. This report will be laid in Parliament by the Department for International Trade before the start of the 21-day scrutiny period of the free trade deal under the terms of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act. This follows a call from the NFU to put the Trade and Agriculture Commission on a statutory basis to report to Parliament ahead of trade deals going through the CRaG process.
The move, which is part of the government’s ambition to place farmers at the heart of its trade policy, will allow Parliamentarians access to independent and expert advice when reviewing the impact of each trade deal on farming.
The Commission will continue to report to the Secretary of State for International Trade and will continue with the report it is currently producing, which will advise on:
- Trade policies the Government should adopt to secure opportunities for UK farmers, to ensure that animal welfare, food production and environmental standards are not undermined and to identify new export opportunities.
- Advancing and protecting British consumer interests and those of developing countries.
- How the UK engages the WTO to build a coalition that helps advance higher animal welfare standards across the world.
- Developing trade policy that identifies and opens up new export opportunities for the UK agricultural industry – in particular for SMEs – and that benefits the UK economy as a whole.
The Commission is publishing an interim report shortly, and the full report will be published in February 2021 and presented to Parliament.
The Government has also tabled an amendment to the Agriculture Bill, in order to boost parliamentary scrutiny of new free trade deals from 1 January. It will place a duty on the Government to report to Parliament on whether, or to what extent, commitments in new free trade deals relating to agricultural goods are consistent with maintaining UK levels of statutory protection in relation to human, animal and plant life and health; animal welfare; and environmental protection. This report will be laid at the same time, or ahead of, any free trade deal being laid before Parliament, demonstrating how we are meeting our commitments on standards.
During trade negotiations, the Department for International Trade consults widely with its agri-food Trade Advisory Group, comprised of farmers and other senior figures from across the industry. The Government also has a suite of tools – including tariffs, tariff rate quotas and safeguards – to ensure that British farmers with their high standards are not unfairly undercut.
The Government needs the freedom to negotiate deals on a case-by-case basis. Imposing an outright blanket ban on imports that do not meet UK production standards is not the right way to support our farmers. This would be unprecedented in global trading and would put up more trade barriers than the EU does. While we understand the intention behind these requirements, they would in fact cause untold damage to developing countries and our trade policy.
- Developing countries would struggle to meet these new requirements, with a knock-on impact on their people and economies.
- It would harm the interests of the UK public, who already safely eat and drink imported products that don’t precisely meet our production standards.
- It would hurt the UK businesses who rely on imported products to manufacture final goods for sale.
As we have previously said chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-fed beef are illegal in the UK and they will not be negotiated as part of any trade agreement. The Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland will continue to provide independent advice to make sure all food imports comply with our high standards.
All parts of the UK should be proud of our world-leading environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards and I hope these new measures will show that we will not lower these as we negotiate new trade deals.
