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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of preventing imports of sheep meat into the UK in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal.

The Government announced on 13 March that we would apply the maximum level of tariff protection in line with our World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments for the UK sheep meat sector. In particular, the tariff for sheep meat would be set at the ‘bound rate’, which is the highest tariff we are able to apply to imports.

The UK would, however, be retaining a share of current EU WTO quotas for sheep meat, including imports from New Zealand to meet our commitments at the WTO. The share has been calculated based on apportioning the EU quota in proportion to previous trade flows.