Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether her Department held consultations with the (a) poultry and (b) egg industry before the UK's accession Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Global trade flows on shell eggs are minimal given difficulties in transporting over long distances and exports of egg products are not significant within the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) membership. The UK did not import any eggs from CPTPP Parties in 2022. We will retain tariffs on eggs and egg products until year 10 of the agreement. For Australia, eggs will remain subject to Most Favoured Nation tariff rates.

The British Poultry Council was included in the department’s Trade Advisory Group on agri-food, which met regularly. The British Egg Industry Council was included in a CPTPP roundtable with agricultural stakeholders. The consultation exercises run by the UK Government for CPTPP received almost 150,000 responses, and we published our response to these in 2021.