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

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment the Government has made of the effect of Rules of Origin requirements on (a) the UK tobacco industry and (b) finished tobacco products imported into the UK from the EU from 1 January 2021, to support negotiations on the UK-EU Free Trade Agreement.

In the event of a Free Trade Agreement with the EU, as with all Free Trade Agreements and all products, the Rules of Origin for finished tobacco products would be specific to that agreement. The exact rules will be discussed and decided through the negotiations, which, in this case, are still ongoing. The UK and EU have held substantial discussions on Rules of Origin and Defra has supported these conversations.