Trade Agreements: Climate Change

(asked on 1st February 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that (a) trade deals which include trade on food and drink and (b) other trade deals support the UK's domestic and international climate commitments.


Answered by
Greg Hands Portrait
Greg Hands
Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
This question was answered on 9th February 2021

Our manifesto is clear that in all our trade negotiations we will maintain our high environmental protection standards, which includes clean growth and climate change objectives, animal welfare and food standards.

To inform trade deals and feed into all our negotiations, the Government has run a series of public consultations with the food and drink industry and has established key fora for industry stakeholders such as the Trade and Agriculture Commission and Trade Advisory Groups. As negotiations progress, we will bring together the best evidence from across Government, insight from external stakeholders and a range of data and analytical tools.

Our outline approaches to free trade agreements (FTAs) with the US, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia, have committed to securing provisions that will help trade in low carbon goods and services, support research and development, innovation in green sectors, and maintain our right to regulate in pursuit of decarbonisation. We will continue to pursue a range of mechanisms in the design of future trade policy, both bilateral and multilateral, working with partner nations to tackle climate change.

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