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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to maintain British food production standards in trade agreements.

The Government has been clear that in all of our trade negotiations we will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.

Legal protections for our standards are in place. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 retains standards on environmental protection, animal welfare, animal and plant health and food safety. This includes the prohibition on the use of artificial growth hormones in both domestic production and imported meat products and that no products, other than potable water, are approved to decontaminate poultry carcases.

The Government has recently taken steps to give Parliament a greater role in scrutinising trade agreements. In the Agriculture Act 2020, the Government established a duty for the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on whether, or to what extent, measures in new Free Trade Agreements, relating to trade in agricultural goods, are consistent with maintaining UK levels of statutory protection in relation to human, animal or plant life or health, animal welfare and the environment.

In July we established the Trade and Agriculture Commission, an independent board set up to advise and inform the Government’s trade policies on environmental and animal welfare standards in food production. We have since moved to put it on a statutory footing in the Trade Bill and the Commission will directly feed into the Agriculture Act reporting process.