Oral Answers to Questions

David Duguid Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

10. What steps her Department has taken to help increase global export opportunities for British farmers.

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

16. What steps her Department has taken to help increase global export opportunities for British farmers.

[The Secretary of State for International Trade (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

Our trade agreements are lowering tariffs and unlocking new opportunities for food exporters and the farmers that supply them. The Department for International Trade supports such businesses to capitalise on those opportunities, expand into new markets and sell fantastic British produce overseas.

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[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

Wales produces some of the UK’s most iconic food products and we have already unlocked new markets to increase opportunities—for example, gaining access for UK lamb, poultry and beef to Japan. We want to unlock even more opportunities for Welsh farmers and exporters and we will be working closely with the Welsh farming industry as we seek to do so.

[David Duguid]

On behalf of my constituent, Irene Fowlie, may I thank the Department, along with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for its help in facilitating the export of high-quality pedigree Essie Suffolk sheep to Georgia earlier this year? May I ask my right hon. Friend, whom I welcome to her new role, how we can improve access to new export routes for other high-quality agricultural produce, particularly from Scotland?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

My hon. Friend is a great champion of all the wonderful produce coming out of Scotland and I thank him for his continued efforts. He will be pleased to know that we launched the export support service on 1 October, which will be there to help existing and potentially new exporters with some of those new markets. We have also established a new team in Edinburgh, which is building great networks, and we are committed to enhancing our support for businesses across Scotland to help us showcase the amazing goods and services from every corner of that nation.