Drinks and Food: Standards

(asked on 25th June 2020) - View Source

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

Whether he plans to maintain food and drink standards after the transition period.


Answered by
Victoria Prentis Portrait
Victoria Prentis
Attorney General
This question was answered on 25th June 2020

This Government is committed to upholding our high environmental, food safety and animal welfare standards as we leave the EU. The EU Withdrawal Act will transfer all existing food safety provisions, including existing import requirements, onto the UK statute book after the Transition Period. These requirements include a ban on using artificial growth hormones in domestic and imported products, and set out that no products, other than potable water, are approved to decontaminate poultry carcasses.

Our manifesto is clear that in all of our trade negotiations, we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.

We are already engaging with the agricultural sector as part of our trade discussions and we will continue to work closely with the National Farmers’ Union and other relevant stakeholders across the food chain to understand the concerns about the impact of new trade deals, as well as the opportunities. The Government has in place a range of stakeholder groups to feed into our policy development on trade. These include the Strategic Trade Advisory Group, the Agri-Food Expert Trade Advisory Group and various supply chain groups.

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