Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will publish a timetable for finalising an EU-UK SPS agreement under the Trade Specialised Committee of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement; and if he will provide details of engagements he (a) has had or (b) plans to have with representatives of relevant business sectors in connection with that agreement.

The Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) includes an SPS chapter which allows the UK and the EU to take a risk-based approach to our respective SPS border controls and provides a basis for cooperation on avoiding unnecessary barriers to trade.

A key part of this is the Trade Specialised Committee, which is tasked with regularly reviewing the Parties' SPS measures, including certification requirements and border clearance processes, and their application, in order to facilitate trade between the Parties.

We are open to discussions with the EU on additional steps to further reduce trade friction, but these cannot be on the basis of future alignment with EU rules. This would compromise UK sovereignty over our own laws.

We regularly engage with industry stakeholders to seek their views on SPS trade issues under the TCA. As part of this engagement, we have and will continue to use existing mechanisms, such as the Ministerial F4 meeting and its Borders and Transport sub-group, to gather views from across the food chain.