Trade Policy: Environmental Considerations

Baroness Quin Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Quin]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what environmental considerations influence their trade policy.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Department for International Trade (Lord Grimstone of Boscobel) (Con)]

My Lords, Her Majesty’s Government are committed to upholding the UK’s high environmental standards in our trade policy. We consider a wide range of environmental issues in our trade policy and in what we are seeking to pursue in multilateral fora, as well as under our new free trade agreements. This includes upholding commitments in the Paris Agreement, maintaining our right to regulate to meet net zero and, of course, co-operating on issues from forests and fisheries to greenhouse gas emissions.

[Baroness Quin (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government’s trade strategy seems to aim to increase trade with geographically distant countries, but this does not make much environmental sense. Have the Government conducted an assessment of their trade policies on harmful climate emissions, by air or sea? Will they raise the environmental impact of trade policies at COP 26?

[Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)]

We will certainly raise the impact of trade policies at COP 26. On the noble Baroness’s point about where our trade agreements are being made, of course it might have been better if Australia and New Zealand were close to Europe, but they are not. They are important countries to make trade agreements with, and that trumps the question of geography, in this case.