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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what safeguards the Government has put in place to protect high British food and farming standards after new trade deals are agreed with countries outside the EU.

The Government has a clear manifesto commitment that in all of our trade negotiations we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.

Legal protections for our standards are in place. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 retains standards on environmental protection, animal welfare, animal and plant health and food safety. This includes the prohibition on the use of artificial growth hormones in both domestic production and imported meat products and that no products, other than potable water are approved to decontaminate poultry carcases.

The Government has recently taken additional steps to give Parliament a greater role in scrutinising trade agreements. In the Agriculture Act 2020, we have established a duty for the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the impact of our Free Trade Agreements on the maintenance of UK food safety, animal welfare and environmental standards.

In July we established the Trade and Agriculture Commission, an independent board set up to advise and inform the Government’s trade policies on environmental and animal welfare standards in food production. We have since moved to put it on a statutory footing in the Trade Bill and the Commission will directly feed into the Agriculture Act reporting process.