Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what her Department’s policy is on live animal exports in respect of future trade deals.
Maintaining high environmental, animal welfare and food standards is a red line in the Government’s Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations. FTAs do not create new permissions for imports from partner countries. Imports will continue to meet the same UK food safety and biosecurity import standards as they did before.
As part of the UK’s Action Plan for Animal Welfare, the Government has introduced the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill to Parliament, which includes measures to ban live animal exports for slaughter and fattening. The Bill will make the UK the first European country to ban this practice.