Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I welcome my hon. Friend to his place —it is nice to have so many hon. Friends to welcome today. I am sure that, like me, he listened to “Farming Today” this morning and heard, in relation to the Oxford conference, a debate on how important it is to maintain high animal welfare standards on imports in any future trade deals. One of the odd points about this debate is that the Government are constantly asked whether we will maintain high animal welfare standards, notwithstanding our manifesto commitments to do so, but there is very little scrutiny of those areas in Europe that have lower standards. I am sure that we will explore the issue during the negotiations.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will know that the EU’s groundbreaking European green deal includes many policies with which UK alignment will be straightforward. Others will be more challenging. For example, the circular economy action plan will seek to change business models and set minimum standards for producers to prevent environmentally harmful products being placed on the market. He has talked about wanting to lead on environmental issues, so will the Government commit to adopting and keeping pace with the proposed minimum standards on sustainable production?

[Steve Barclay]

We are very happy to commit to world-leading environmental standards. One of the areas where we are doing so is through our hosting of COP26 in Glasgow, which will be key, and through standards—[Interruption.] I will come on to climate change, but that is integrated in our aspiration—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is chuntering away, but I will move on to that. On the specific point about the green deal, he is right that the Commission President specifically referred to the green deal in her speech at the London School of Economics yesterday, and it is something that the Prime Minister and I discussed with her in our meeting. Again, it is an area where the UK has world-leading expertise. Look at our green finance, our green investment bank and the areas where the UK is in the lead. We look forward to working with the European Union on that as we move forward.