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Written Question
Agriculture: Trade
Tuesday 5th December 2023

Asked by: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of publishing an annual assessment of the potential impact of international trade deals on agriculture.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Government has published Impact Assessments for each of the Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) we have agreed, which set out expected impacts for the UK economy and its regions and sectors. The agreements balance open and free trade with protections for the agricultural industry. Defra also monitors and evaluates the impact of FTAs on sectors to ensure that UK businesses are benefitting from FTAs.

Following the agreement of FTAs with Australia and New Zealand, a suite of products has been developed to help businesses understand and use new opportunities and make use of the preferential terms. This includes thematic guidance in business-friendly language on key FTA areas such as rules of origin and customs procedures, and sector-specific explainers for businesses looking to understand market opportunities and how to operationalise their export plans.


Written Question
Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership
Friday 22nd September 2023

Asked by: Lord Leong (Labour - Life peer)

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

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that protections are in place for (1) farmers, and (2) other agriculture producers, as part of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) negotiations.

Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The Government has negotiated a balanced agreement that maintains our high standards, secures access to new and growing markets and includes strong protections for the UK’s farmers and other agricultural producers, particularly in regard to our sensitive sectors. For example, increased access to the UK market for sensitive agricultural produce will be staged over a significant period of time – in most cases over 10 years – allowing our producers to adjust to any new trade flows from CPTPP members. We have also secured permanent annual limits on the amount of beef, pork, chicken, milled rice, and sugar that can be imported tariff-free from the biggest CPTPP producers, offering further protection to UK producers in these sensitive sectors.

Additionally, in line with our commitments following the signing of bilateral free trade agreements with both Australia and New Zealand, we have not provided those countries with any further market access on sensitive agricultural products as part of our CPTPP accession. Finally, a general transitional safeguard mechanism on eligible products will provide a temporary safety net for industry if they face serious injury, or threat of serious injury, from increased imports from any CPTPP member as a result of the agreement. The Government is clear that this represents a strong package of protections for our farmers and agricultural producers.


Written Question
Agricultural Products: Exports
Wednesday 19th April 2023

Asked by: Peter Bone (Independent - Wellingborough)

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help support agricultural exports.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

We are delivering our commitment to boost UK exports. We want people at home and abroad to be lining up to buy British.

We have expanded our agrifood attaché network from two to eleven locations around the world. They work to resolve market access barriers, reduce the complexity of trading requirements, and raise the profile of British products, enabling U.K. producers to tap into the growing international demand for our quality products.

The attachés work to drive export growth and help deliver on the opportunities created by new Free Trade Agreements.


Written Question
Animal Welfare and Environment Protection: Standards
Tuesday 4th April 2023

Asked by: Lord Bishop of Exeter (Bishops - Bishops)

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

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the differences in environmental and animal welfare standards in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, and the impact of these differences on British farmers, given the UK–Australia and UK–New Zealand free trade agreements.

Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The Government has been clear that any access to UK markets agreed through trade agreements will be fair and reciprocal, taking into account sectoral sensitivities and differences in food production standards. For example, within the UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement we secured the exclusion of pork, chicken and eggs from tariff liberalisation reflecting the importance of animal welfare to the UK and the level of trade between Australia and the UK on these products.

In both our negotiations with Australia and with New Zealand, we carefully considered the potential impacts on British farmers and secured a range of different measures to protect them. These measures include tariff rate quotas for several sensitive agricultural products, product specific safeguards and a general bilateral safeguard mechanism providing a temporary safety net for all products.

The Government has published full impact assessments for the UK-Australia and UK-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement’s, which include impacts on the agricultural sector.

We remain committed to upholding the UK’s high environmental, food safety and animal welfare standards through trade. The independent Trade & Agriculture Commission concluded that our agreements with Australia and New Zealand do not undermine the UK’s robust domestic protections. Neither agreement creates any new permissions or authorisations for imports from Australia or New Zealand. All products imported into the UK will, as they do now, have to comply with our import requirements.


Written Question
Poultry: Industry
Wednesday 22nd March 2023

Asked by: Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative - Elmet and Rothwell)

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to help protect the domestic poultry industry from unfair competition from other countries which have lower energy costs or lower production standards.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Government is proud of the high food safety and animal welfare standards that underpin our high-quality Great British produce. We put British farming at the heart of our trade policy and have no intention of undercutting our own reputation for quality by lowering our standards in pursuit of a trade deal.

In all trade agreements we negotiate, we will stand up for British farming and aim to secure new opportunities for the industry. We will always look to ensure that UK Free Trade Agreements are fair and reciprocal, and that any ‘opening up’ does not cause an unwanted downturn for domestic producers.

We are also working hard to support a thriving and profitable domestic industry. In December 2022 I hosted a roundtable for UK egg producers to discuss the challenges that the industry has been facing due to the increase in input costs. We have relaxed marketing rules on the sale of defrosted seasonal poultry products and allowed concessions to the sale of free-range eggs impacted by Avian Influenza housing restrictions. In addition, since November 2022, the poultry industry has been able to access the Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS). In January 2023 the Government announced the Energy Bills Discount Scheme (EBDS) that will replace EBRS when it comes to an end on 31st March 2023. This new scheme will run until 31st March 2024. Following a review of the EBRS, the Government will target a higher level of support under the EBDS at the most energy and trade intensive sectors – which are primarily manufacturing businesses – in addition to the broader EBDS support. Poultry meat processing falls within the remit of the Government’s Energy Intensive Industries exemption scheme and will therefore also qualify for the enhanced level of support.

We continue to keep the sector under close review, including through the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group, which monitors UK agricultural markets including price, supply, inputs, trade and recent developments.


Written Question
Agriculture
Tuesday 21st June 2022

Asked by: Dan Poulter (Conservative - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has to support farmers from rising input costs.

Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General

We have recognised that increasing input costs, particularly fertiliser, feed, fuel and energy, are creating short term pressures on cash flow.

The Secretary of State recently announced a range of measures in support of the current situation, such as delaying changes to the use of urea fertiliser to help farmers manage their costs and improving statutory guidance for use of slurry. On 31 March I also hosted the first meeting of the Fertiliser Taskforce with key industry bodies to discuss potential mitigations to the challenges which global supply pressures are causing. Ministers will continue to meet with key industry bodies for further Fertiliser Taskforce sessions in the coming months, to help identify and mitigate potential risks.

In addition, the 2022 Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) payment will be made in two instalments to give farmers an advance injection of cash. Farmers with eligible applications will receive half of their payment from the end of July, and the rest from December. By doing this, the Government intends to inject cash into farm businesses, helping them to make business decisions sooner, with more confidence.

This builds on the increase in revenue payment rates for the Countryside Stewardship scheme to reflect the change in costs since 2013, which Defra announced in January 2022. The majority of payment rates increased, on average by around 30%, although rate changes vary from option to option. These changes affected around 30,000 agreements.

In March 2022, Defra began rolling out the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) to recipients of the BPS. SFI will help with the costs of sowing nitrogen fixing plants and green manures in crops to substitute some fertiliser requirements for the coming season, as well as reducing the dependence on manufactured fertilisers which are impacted by the price of gas. Rising fertiliser prices highlight that we need to find alternatives and move towards more organic-based fertiliser products. SFI is designed to help farmers move to these new sustainable farming methods gradually - which will improve environmental conditions of the land, while building the long-term resilience of our food security and production

We continue to keep the market situation under review through the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group, which monitors UK agricultural markets including price, supply, inputs, trade and recent developments. We have also increased our engagement with industry to supplement our analysis with real time intelligence.


Written Question
Agricultural Products: Trade Agreements
Friday 10th December 2021

Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)

Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps she is taking to ensure that UK farmers' produce is protected in trade deals negotiated with other countries around the world.

Answered by Ranil Jayawardena

HM Government will always consider the opportunities and other impacts on the agricultural industry of any trade agreement we negotiate. In addition, the independent Trade and Agriculture Commission will scrutinise new free trade agreements once they are signed, providing an additional layer of independent scrutiny.

Our trade agreements unlock new opportunities for our agriculture, food and drink sector and we will continue to work with producers and suppliers to make sure the sector is represented in future free trade agreements.


Written Question
Meat: Australia
Monday 15th November 2021

Asked by: Theresa Villiers (Conservative - Chipping Barnet)

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the trade deal agreed in principle between the UK and Australia, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact on anti-microbial resistance in the UK of increased meat imports from Australia where antibiotics are permitted to be used as growth promoters.

Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General

All meat and other animal products imported into the UK are subject to clear controls on limits of veterinary medicine residues, including antimicrobials. The UK also prohibits the use of artificial growth hormones in both domestic production and imported meat products. Our agreement with Australia changes neither of these facts.

Minimising the development and spread of Anti Microbial Resistance (AMR) to protect human and animal health is a key priority for the Government. As part of this, we have secured a commitment to cooperate on the fight against AMR with Australia. This includes exchanging information and expertise on combatting AMR, as well as collaborating in international fora on the development and implementation of international standards and initiatives on this matter.

Under Section 42 of the Agriculture Act, the Trade Secretary must 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. The deal with Australia will be subject to this requirement.


Written Question
Trade Agreements
Thursday 22nd July 2021

Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)

Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what recent discussions she has had with stakeholders on her obligations under the Trade Act 2021 to undertake health assessments of trade deals; who will carry out those assessments; and when the health assessment for the UK-Australia free trade deal will be carried out.

Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)

There are no obligations under the Trade Act 2021 to carry out health assessments of our trade agreements. However, under section 42 of the Agriculture Act 2020, my Rt Hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade must prepare a report explaining whether, or to what extent, measures in a free trade agreement (FTA) applicable to trade in agricultural products are consistent with the maintenance of UK levels of statutory protection in relation to:

(a) human, animal or plant life or health,

(b) animal welfare, and

(c) the environment.

This report must be laid before Part 2 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 - which must precede ratification of the FTA - can commence.


Written Question
Agricultural Products: Food
Monday 28th June 2021

Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)

Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what assessment the Government has made of the potential (a) environmental and (b) carbon impact of agricultural products entering the UK food market as a result of the proposed future UK-Australia trade deal.

Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)

HM Government has always been clear that any free trade agreement it signs will not threaten the UK’s ability to meet its environmental commitments or its membership of international environmental agreements. HM Government is seeking a deal with Australia that will further environmental and climate policy priorities and the UK will not compromise on high environmental protection.

HM Government carried out a public consultation and scoping assessment for its free trade agreement negotiation with Australia, which can be found on HM Government’s website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uks-approach-to-negotiating-a-free-trade-agreement-with-australia/uk-australia-free-trade-agreement-the-uks-strategic-approach. This preliminary scoping assessment considered illustrative scenarios and served as a point of reference when concluding the agreement in principle. Following the conclusion of negotiations, a full impact assessment will be published prior to implementation.