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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether negotiations on a Common Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Area with the EU has begun.

The UK is ready to move forward quickly to implement the outcomes agreed at the UK-EU summit.

We are already in discussions in some areas – Security Action for Europe (SAFE), Erasmus, Electricity linking - and in others (Sanitary and Phytosanitary / Emissions Trading Scheme) the EU is agreeing to their mandates. We stand ready to start talks as soon as those mandates are agreed.