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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the cumulative impact of successive trade deals on Welsh agriculture.

HMG publishes scoping assessments to assess the impacts of free trade agreements, in advance of negotiations. Following signature of an agreement, a full impact assessment is published prior to implementation. These assessments set out the impact of each agreement at a sectoral (including agriculture and the food sector) and sub-national level including Wales.

The exact impacts of future trade agreements are uncertain and together with the devolved administrations, Defra has established the UK Agricultural Market Monitoring Group (UKAMMG) to monitor and assess the impact of market developments across the UK. The group monitors UK agricultural markets including price, supply, trade and recent developments, enabling it to provide forewarning of any atypical market movements. The UKAMMG will flag where further investigation of market developments is required and when policy teams and Ministers should be informed of any developments. Whilst the UK Government works closely with the Welsh Government in monitoring the UK agricultural markets it remains sensitive to the fact that agriculture is a devolved policy area.

In addition, HMG is actively monitoring the impact of newly implemented free trade agreements and is currently developing the tools and evidence for future monitoring and evaluation of free trade agreements.