Select committee: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 2
First report - Australia FTA: Food and Agriculture
Published 17 Jun 2022
Paragraph 22
Addressed to Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Australia FTA: Food and Agriculture All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
While the Government has argued that it has secured three safeguards to protect farmers it appears to us that only the general bilateral safeguard mechanism offers any real protection. The volumetric safeguards would only kick in if there were a truly massive increase in Australian red meat imports and, crucially, would only prevent the arrival of further imports rather than address any damage already caused by export permitted within the tariff rate quotas. We call on the Government to publish the tests it will use to decide whether and when the general bilateral safeguard mechanism in the UK-Australia FTA should be triggered. Ministers should also set out the policy interventions it would consider using to address any harm that was being caused to the agri-food and farming sectors.
From: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, First report - Australia FTA: Food and Agriculture (HC 23), paragraph 22, 17 June 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 12 October 2022 (deadline 17 August 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the Committee's report and responds to each recommendation, largely setting out existing measures in the UK-Australia FTA and committing to seek similar environmental provisions in future FTAs.
- On the bilateral safeguard, it says the technical processes are "currently under review by Government" and that it "will continue to keep Parliament updated on the outcome of the review".
- On future FTAs, it says it "will further seek similar commitments and provisions" on the environment, and will seek applicability across all levels of government.
- On impact assessments, it "accepts the recommendations" of the Trade Modelling Review Expert Panel and "intends to implement them fully", but expects changes to be "incremental".
- On import controls, it says the new Target Operating Model "will be published in the Autumn" and the new controls regime "will come into force at the end of 2023".